Aliasing in Digital Photography Explained

If there’s one thing that digital photography has no shortage of, it’s confusing vocabulary words. Aliasing,
which is a common word in the world of digital everything (video games, CGI, photography), is one of
those words that everyone has heard, but may not quite understand. And the anti-aliasing feature found
on many digital cameras doesn’t do much to explain why you should use it. Not to worry though, for anti-
aliasing is no where near as complicated as it may sound.

The Basics About Pixels

Most digital images are made up of square units known as pixels. If you take any of your digital
photographs and zoom in a few times, you will notice that the closer you get, the more blocky the image
appears. This blocky appearance is the result of the individual pixels becoming more pronounced as the
digital image is increased in size.

Aliasing and Anti-aliasing Examples

Your camera’s resolution is directly related to the number of individual pixels it can capture in a given
frame as is often referred to as the mega pixel value. The higher the resolution, the more pixels you get.
The more pixels you have, the smoother the lines in your image. For example, think of a staircase where it
looks blocky up close but as you move further away it looks more like a diagonal line. This is how pixels
work to create shapes in an image.

The Basics About Aliasing

When you look at your image and see the pixels that make up the edges of round or diagonal lines this is
aliasing. When you see this pixels drawn rigidly and in only one color, the lines will look more noticeable
and jagged. This may not be immediately visible if the pixel is surrounded by others of a similar color, but
as the colors increase in contrast, the pixel will increase in visibility.

Aliasing is not usually obvious unless an image has been taken at a very low resolution. Most modern
digital cameras shoot at resolutions that make aliasing nearly unnoticeable to the naked eye, however it is
easy to spot once these images have been blown up from their original size. Unfortunately, no matter how
good the camera is, all digital cameras have some degree of aliasing.

So What is Anti-Aliasing?

Anti-aliasing allows the colors at the edge of pixels to bleed into one another, creating a sort of blurred
effect. It may sound counter-intuitive, but blurring the edges of each individual pixel will result in sharper
images with smoother lines and more natural color differentiation.

As an experiment, try taking one of your digital photographs and dramatically reducing it in size. This will
cause the lines of objects in the pictures to look smoother as the size of the picture decreases in size. As
the pixels in the image shrink, they become less visible to the naked eye. This is a similar effect to anti-
aliasing – slightly blurring each pixel makes it stand out less and blend more smoothly into the image.

Most good digital cameras will come with a built in anti-aliasing feature so your pictures won’t have the
“blocky” look. Anti-aliasing will make your photographs look more natural and will help to offset any loss
of quality caused by a lower resolution camera or setting. Although it is always good idea to shoot at the
highest resolution possible, anti-aliasing will help to make sure your images look great.

Although you may not have realized how important anti-aliasing was before, once you understand the
impact on your pictures you won’t want to shoot without it. Jagged lines are one of the major downfalls to
digital imagery, and anti-aliasing helps to bridge the gap between ultra-high-resolution cameras and
equipment that falls more in the price range of the average hobbyist. If your camera has an anti-aliasing
function, make sure to always have it on and your pictures will certainly thank you.