WHEN EVERY PIXEL COUNTS

The smaller the size of an image you want to create, the more meaning you'll have to pack into every single pixel.

If you have a picture phone, you're already a seasoned user of pictures down to the size of a pin head. . What would we do without those tiny icons, readable at a glance - in any language? They're not only indispensable. Symbols, however small, can sometimes be powerful stuff. It pays to give even the smallest graphics the attention they deserve.

One little shape can say most of all in the smallest space. What's that? A face. Symbols can have different meanings in different cultures, but let's - er - face it, we've all got faces. Whether or not you go wild over smileys and emoticons, these special symbols have caught on because they're so useful. What was the first thing you ever learned to read? A human face.

You may remember a web fad of a few months ago. You paid a dollar a pixel to place an ad. I visited one such page, crammed with tiny graphics, mostly textual. One face and my eye went straight to it.

Funnily enough, considering the experience we've had, most of us still aren't a hundred percent efficient at reading faces. Secret agents and deaf people learn to be pretty good at seeing body language. The rest of us all too often take faces at, well, face value. A social smile or scowl can often hide a very different emotion. (So can a smiley!) Learning a bit about drawing facial expressions can reveal a thing or two about social skills.

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FACES . SYMBOLS

DRAWING . TABLETS . DOWNSIZING IMAGE FILES

PHONE PICS . FAVICON TUTORIAL . AGENDA ICONS