An image is composed of rows and columns. A pixel corresponds to the intersection of a row and a column. If it is a geographical image from a remote sensor or scanned from a paper map, and it is oriented to the north, the lines are organized according to the latitude (Y coordinates) and columns by longitude (X coordinates), since the image has undergone a georeferencing operation. An image is usually stored in raster format.

See: Raster (mode), Georeferencing