With certain fonts, if you select a very small size (say 6 points) the lower case c is indistinguishable from the lower case e.* If you think of a bitmap as a simple grid, with every box either white or black, each lower case letter, at that size, is confined to a 3×3 box. There’s no room for the crosspiece in the middle.
The interesting thing about this Is that your eye fills it in. You can read the word “face??? just fine, and your eye fills in the distinction between the c and the e. Only an expert; someone who has zoomed in 800% and diddled around at the pixel level, knows the difference.
I have a friend with a degree in music. He tells me there is no such thing as a difference between “expert??? taste in music, and “amateur??? taste in music. If you like it, it’s good, period. Since I’m the amateur and he’s the expert, this is no doubt meant to be reassuring, but I doubt he is correct. Often, when I don’t like some acclaimed musician, I figure I’m just wrong. Like Frank Sinatra. Big gorram deal about his “phrasing;??? I never really know what that means anyway. I’d much rather listen to Tony Bennet. But I figure I must be wrong, because all the experts love him; experts who can listen at the pixel level.
In the Concert for Bangladesh, there’s a bit where Ravi Shankar is introduced. This is an audience there for George Harrison and Bob Dylan, and they don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout no sitar music. Shankar plays something and they all applaud. Shankar says “I was just tuning up.??? Harrison’s audience couldn’t hear Indian music at the pixel level, they could just respond to the sound on the most basic level.
My friend would say they weren’t wrong. Their pleasure was totally legit. And he’s right. But the expert who can distinguish between tuning up and playing, between playing adequately and playing materfully, hears more. It’s not that s/he hears “better??? or “smarter,??? s/he hears MORE, just like you see more when you zoom in 800%.
Expertise enlarges your eyes/ears/nose. It shows you the pixels. It’s not non-egalitarian, it’s not (necessarily) elitist. It’s just…bigger.
*This is less true than it was five or ten years ago when I first observed it. Now, most bitmap software uses shades of gray to fine tune. However, since I’m being metaphorical, just go with it.
