Pixelization (
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
, pixelisation) or mosaic processing is any technique used in editing images or video, whereby an image is blurred by displaying part or all of it at a markedly lower
resolution
Resolution(s) may refer to:
Common meanings
* Resolution (debate), the statement which is debated in policy debate
* Resolution (law), a written motion adopted by a deliberative body
* New Year's resolution, a commitment that an individual mak ...
. It is primarily used for
censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
. The effect is a standard graphics filter, available in all but the most basic
bitmap graphics editor
A raster graphics editor is a computer program that allows users to create and edit images interactively on the computer screen and save them in one of many raster graphics file formats (also known as bitmap images) such as JPEG, PNG, and GIF.
...
s.
As censorship
A familiar example of pixelization can be found in majority of television news and documentary productions, in which vehicle
license plate
A vehicle registration plate, also known as a number plate (British English), license plate (American English), or licence plate ( Canadian English), is a metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identificati ...
s and faces of suspects at crime scenes are routinely obscured to maintain the
presumption of innocence
The presumption of innocence is a legal principle that every person accused of any crime is considered innocent until proven guilty. Under the presumption of innocence, the legal burden of proof is thus on the prosecution, which must present com ...
, such as how it appears in the television series ''
COPS''. This is especially used in
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
and
Slovakia
Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...
by RTL Klub. Bystanders and others who do not sign
release form
A legal release is a legal instrument that acts to terminate any legal liability between the releasor and the releasee(s), signed by the releasor. A release may also be made orally in some circumstances. Releases are routinely used by photographer ...
s are also customarily pixelized. Footage of
nudity
Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing.
The loss of body hair was one of the physical characteristics that marked the biological evolution of modern humans from their hominin ancestors. Adaptations related to ...
(including
male
Male (symbol: ♂) is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or ovum, in the process of fertilization.
A male organism cannot reproduce sexually without access to ...
and
female genitals
A sex organ (or reproductive organ) is any part of an animal or plant that is involved in sexual reproduction. The reproductive organs together constitute the reproductive system. In animals, the testis in the male, and the ovary in the female, a ...
,
buttocks
The buttocks (singular: buttock) are two rounded portions of the exterior anatomy of most mammals, located on the posterior of the pelvic region. In humans, the buttocks are located between the lower back and the perineum. They are composed ...
,
nipples
The nipple is a raised region of tissue on the surface of the breast from which, in females, milk leaves the breast through the lactiferous ducts to feed an infant. The milk can flow through the nipple passively or it can be ejected by smooth mu ...
,
pubic hair
Pubic hair is terminal body hair that is found in the genital area of adolescent and adult humans. The hair is located on and around the sex organs and sometimes at the top of the inside of the thighs. In the pubic region around the pubis bon ...
, or
areolae
The human areola (''areola mammae'', or ) is the pigmented area on the breast around the nipple. Areola, more generally, is a small circular area on the body with a different histology from the surrounding tissue, or other small circular ar ...
) is likewise obscured in some media: before the
watershed
Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to:
Hydrology
* Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins
* Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...
in many countries, in newspapers or general
magazine
A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...
s, or in places in which the public cannot avoid seeing the image (such as on billboards). Drug references, as well as gestures considered obscene (such as
the finger
In Western culture, "the finger", or the middle finger (as in giving someone the (middle) finger, the bird or flipping someone off) is an obscene hand gesture. The gesture communicates moderate to extreme contempt, and is roughly equivalent i ...
) may also be censored in this manner. Pixelization is not usually used for this purpose in films,
DVDs
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
,
subscription television services, or
pornography
Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults, (except for countries in which the law requires it). When obscene language is censored by an audible
bleep
Bleep may refer to:
* Bleep sound, a noise, generally of a single tone, often generated by a machine
** Bleep censor, the replacement of offensive language (swear words) or personal details with a beep sound
** Bleep techno, a Yorkshire-born subg ...
, the mouth of the speaker may be pixelized to prevent
lip reading
The lips are the visible body part at the mouth of many animals, including humans. Lips are soft, movable, and serve as the opening for food intake and in the articulation of sound and speech. Human lips are a tactile sensory organ, and can be ...
, such as in ''
COPS''. Graphic injuries and excess blood may also be pixelized.
Pixelization may also be used to avoid unintentional
product placement
Product placement, also known as embedded marketing, is a marketing technique where references to specific brands or products are incorporated into another work, such as a film or television program, with specific promotional intent. Much of th ...
, or to hide elements that would date a broadcast, such as
date
Date or dates may refer to:
*Date (fruit), the fruit of the date palm (''Phoenix dactylifera'')
Social activity
*Dating, a form of courtship involving social activity, with the aim of assessing a potential partner
**Group dating
*Play date, an ...
and
time stamp
A timestamp is a sequence of characters or encoded information identifying when a certain event occurred, usually giving date and time of day, sometimes accurate to a small fraction of a second. Timestamps do not have to be based on some absolut ...
s on
home video
Home video is prerecorded media sold or rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD, Blu-ray and streaming me ...
submissions. Censorship for such purposes is most common on
reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...
series.
Image:Pixelization mosaic.jpg, Pixelization was used to anonymize this photograph.
File:Marshall Webb and Pixelated Classified Document.jpg#filelinks, Marshall B. Webb
Marshall Bradley "Brad" Webb (born November 27, 1961) is a retired United States Air Force lieutenant general who last served as commander of the Air Education and Training Command. He previously served as Commander, United States Air Force Speci ...
, an American general, sits in the White House Situation Room
The Situation Room, officially known as the John F. Kennedy Conference Room, is a conference room and intelligence management center in the basement of the West Wing of the White House. It is run by the National Security Council staff for the u ...
during Operation Neptune Spear
On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden, the founder and first leader of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was shot several times and killed at his compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, by United States Navy SEALs of the U.S. Naval Sp ...
. A classified document on the desk in front of him was pixelized by the government of the United States before the photo was released.
File:JacobvanLennep1.JPG, Wall poem in Amsterdam. The image was self-censored by the artist, Rombout Oomen, in 2004. (Pixelization of the pubic hair
Pubic hair is terminal body hair that is found in the genital area of adolescent and adult humans. The hair is located on and around the sex organs and sometimes at the top of the inside of the thighs. In the pubic region around the pubis bon ...
.)
File: Entrance of The Pokémon
(an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise.
In terms of ...
Company in Tokyo.jpg, Part of this image, a mural at the entrance to the offices of The Pokémon Company
The Pokémon Company (株式会社ポケモン, ''Kabushiki gaisha Pokemon'') is a Japanese company responsible for brand management, production, publishing, marketing, and licensing of the ''Pokémon'' franchise, which consists of video game s ...
in Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
, has been pixelized for copyright reasons.
File:Aluminium MacBook.png, The wallpaper and computer icons of this laptop have been mosaicked for copyright reasons
In media
Pixelization has also been used for artistic effect, notably in the art print ''The Wave of the Future'', a reinterpretation of
Katsushika Hokusai
, known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. He is best known for the woodblock print series '' Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'', which includes the iconic print ''The Great W ...
's ''
The Great Wave at Kanagawa''. In this updated print, the image of the large ocean wave shifts from the traditional style of the Japanese
woodcut
Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...
print to a pixelized image and finally to a
wireframe model
A wire-frame model, also wireframe model, is a visual representation of a three-dimensional (3D) physical object used in 3D computer graphics. It is created by specifying each edge of the physical object where two mathematically continuous ...
computer graphics
Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...
image. ''
Westworld
''Westworld'' is an American science fiction- thriller media franchise that began with the 1973 film ''Westworld'', written and directed by Michael Crichton. The film depicts a technologically advanced Wild-West-themed amusement park populat ...
'' (1973) was the first feature film to use
digital image processing
Digital image processing is the use of a digital computer to process digital images through an algorithm. As a subcategory or field of digital signal processing, digital image processing has many advantages over analog image processing. It allo ...
to pixelize photography to simulate an android's point of view.
Alternative techniques
![Umm Rasas Fisherman](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Umm_Rasas_Fisherman.JPG)
A black rectangular or square box (known as
censor bars
Censor bars are a basic form of text, photography, and video censorship in which "sensitive" information or images are occluded by black, gray, or white rectangular boxes. These bars have been used to censor various parts of images. Since the creat ...
) may be used to occlude parts of images completely (for example, a black bar covering the eyes instead of the entire face being pixelized). Censor bars were extensively used as a graphic device in the January 2012
protests against SOPA and PIPA
On January 18, 2012, a series of coordinated protests occurred against two proposed laws in the United States Congress—the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). These followed smaller protests in late 2011. Protests we ...
.
A drawback of pixelization is that any differences between the large pixels can be exploited in moving images to reconstruct the original, unpixelized image; squinting at a pixelized, moving image can sometimes achieve a similar result. In both cases, integration of the large pixels over time allows smaller, more accurate pixels to be constructed in a still image result. Completely obscuring the censored area with pixels of a constant color or pixels of random colors escapes this drawback but can be more aesthetically jarring.
An additional drawback, when pixelization is used to reduce the repulsing, disturbing or, more generally shocking, aspect of an image, is that all information contained in the pixelized area is lost for the audience.
Other visual processing techniques can help reduce the shocking aspect of images or videos while preserving most of the information of the media.
International legal standards
Nudity
Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing.
The loss of body hair was one of the physical characteristics that marked the biological evolution of modern humans from their hominin ancestors. Adaptations related to ...
is obscured on
broadcast
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began ...
television station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...
s in the United States. The
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
states it is a violation of federal law to air obscene, indecent, and profane programming at any time, especially during certain hours. Monetary penalties and revocation of licenses are issued for law breakers.
Japanese pornography
Pornography in Japan has unique characteristics that readily distinguish it from western pornography. Pornographic films are known as "adult videos" (AV) in Japan, so Japanese adult videos are "JAV", referring to the Japanese pornographic f ...
laws require that genitals in films (including animated works) and other forms of adult media (such as
eroge
An ''eroge'' ( or , ''erogē''; ; a portmanteau of ''erotic game'' , ''erochikku gēmu'') is a Japanese genre of erotic video game. In 1982, Japan's Koei, founded by husband-and-wife team Yoichi and Keiko Erikawa (and later known for strategy ...
, drawings, etc) be obscured. Article 175 of Penal Code (Act No.45 of 1907) still in effect today in Japan forbids any person and imprisons anyone who distributes, sells or displays in public an obscene document, drawing or other objects of such nature. In Thailand, restrictions are placed on television broadcast depiction of cigarettes being smoked, alcohol being consumed, or guns being pointed at people. Pixelization is one method of censoring this content.
In the Philippines, pixelization is also used if there are scenes of naked people or
cadaver
A cadaver or corpse is a dead human body that is used by medical students, physicians and other scientists to study anatomy, identify disease sites, determine causes of death, and provide tissue to repair a defect in a living human being. Stud ...
s, bloody depiction of death by any means (e.g. gunshot wounds) and exposure of innards (sometimes rendered in black and white and blurred), and
the finger gesture, among objectionable content.
However, nudity and some bloody scenes are cut entirely and pointing of guns or blades to oneself or others are cropped. Philippine law states production, printing, publication, importation, sale, distribution, and exhibition of obscene and pornographic material is strictly prohibited and is punishable by law.
See also
*
Bleep censor
A bleep censor is the replacement of a profanity or classified information with a beep (sound), beep sound (usually a ) in television and radio. It is mainly used in the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong ...
*
Colour banding
Colour banding is a subtle form of posterization in digital images, caused by the colour of each pixel being rounded to the nearest of the digital colour levels. While posterization is often done for artistic effect, colour banding is an unde ...
*
Fogging (censorship)
Fogging, also known as blurring, is used for censorship or privacy. A visual area of a picture or movie is blurred to obscure it from sight. This form of censorship is used for sexually related images/scenes, hiding genitals, pubic hair, or sexual ...
, an alternate technique
*
Posterization
Posterization or posterisation of an image is the conversion of a continuous gradation of tone to several regions of fewer tones, causing abrupt changes from one tone to another. This was originally done with photographic processes to create p ...
*
Reverse video
Reverse video (or invert video or inverse video or reverse screen) is a computer display technique whereby the background and text color values are inverted. On older computers, displays were usually designed to display text on a black backgroun ...
*
Tape delay (broadcasting)
In radio and television, broadcast delay is an intentional delay when broadcasting live material, technically referred to as a deferred live. Such a delay may be to prevent mistakes or unacceptable content from being broadcast. Longer delays las ...
* Use of pixelation in camouflage patterns such as
MARPAT
MARPAT (short for Marine pattern) is a multi-scale camouflage pattern in use with the United States Marine Corps, designed in 2001 and introduced from late 2002 to early 2005 with the Marine Corps Combat Utility Uniform (MCCUU), which replaced ...
References
External links
{{Censorship
Facepixelizer - Online editor for pixelizing parts of an image
Censorship of broadcasting
Digital art
Self-censorship