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In Photoshop I need to design for the screen resolution 800 x 480 pixels with the pixel pitch of 0.1926 mm x 0.179 mm.

The active area is 154.08 x 85.92 mm

This translates to 131.87 x 141.89 pixels per inch. So we cannot assume a square pixel to design the screen.

Design has to be set up for a rectangular pixel with varying pixel per inch in horizontal direction of 132 pixels and vertical directions of 142 pixels respectively.

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  • Adjust the pixel aspect ratio – joojaa Dec 26 '16 at 12:02
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First of all, the image itself does not care about pixel pitch and will display the same as any image on any screen, it will simply appear distorted as a result of the non-square pixels if they are not taken in to account when creating your image. In Photoshop you can set the view to compensate for different pixel aspect ratios, essentially distorting the image by the same amount as your intended pixel aspect ratio.

With your document open, choose View → Pixel Aspect Ratio and choose the pixel aspect ratio of the device you're designing for. There are a number of predefined aspect ratios or you can set your own custom value.

In your case you need to create a new aspect ratio by selecting Custom Pixel Aspect Ratio... and entering "1.078" (193/179, your pixel pitch, to 3 decimal places).

enter image description here

Note that setting the the Pixel Aspect Ratio in this manner only changes the view for preview purposes—It doesn't actually affect your file in any way.

You can read more about pixel aspect ratios in Photoshop here:

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  • Hi, Thanks for the clarification and but i didn't get the actual active area in the document size width. I am getting width as 14.31 cm instead of 15.408 cm. My actual active area should be like width 15.408 cm and height 8.59 cm and pixel dimension should be width 800 x height 480. Kindly suggest on the same – Sathiya Dec 27 '16 at 5:57
  • What do you mean by "getting width"? Changing the pixel aspect ratio won't affect rulers or physical measurements, which are only affected by the pixel dimensions and the ppi of the document. As long as your document is the correct pixel dimensions then there's no problem. As I said, the pixel aspect ratio in PS is for preview purposes only, it doesn't affect the file itself at all. – Cai Dec 27 '16 at 9:16
  • @Sathiya apologies, I just realised I should have calculated the aspect ratio from the pixel pitch, not from the ppi ! – Cai Dec 27 '16 at 9:39
  • The first sentence is really important here: you are going to provide an 800 x 480 px image, no matter what. The pixel aspect ratio only matters in that it helps you see what the final result will be on the target display, and has no affect on the image itself. Displaying an image on a target with a different ratio distort the image, so setting an aspect ratio in photoshop allows you to see the image distorted. So you simply set the document up for 800 x 480. – Yorik Dec 27 '16 at 17:45

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