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This is my first post on here, and I doubt it'll be my last

I figured that I probably should do a little puzzle because it's my first submission, but unfortunately, I'm way too literal

Everything you need to solve the puzzle is contained within the 4x18 pixel image, so no hidden info in this text, or any need to try and find other imgur files.

There are many some ways to make partial progress by finding "subanswers" so if you find anything, I'll confirm whether it's right or not, but it's only the "final answer" if it used all the information in the picture.

MiniaturePuzzle

Edit: I've noticed that for me, it looks very blurry if I open it up in a new tab (because of image optimization stuffs?). If you're going to open it in an image editor, just make sure you right click -> copy image -> paste image, and DON'T open new tab -> take a screengrab -> paste. You're good as long as it looks like 4 x 18 distinct pixels, with no blurriness

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  • $\begingroup$ Welcome to Puzzling! This is a great puzzle so far. $\endgroup$
    – Deusovi
    Commented Jan 28, 2017 at 20:31
  • $\begingroup$ Should some of the 215s in the bottom right be 225s? $\endgroup$
    – Deusovi
    Commented Jan 28, 2017 at 20:42
  • $\begingroup$ Yup. I should have known that's what happens when I try and do math in my head $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 28, 2017 at 20:44
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    $\begingroup$ Solved! That was a fantastic puzzle. Can't wait to see more from you! :D $\endgroup$
    – Deusovi
    Commented Jan 28, 2017 at 22:09
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ This was your first post? Favourited $\color{darkorange}{\bigstar}$ :D $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Commented Aug 23, 2018 at 1:31

1 Answer 1

55
+100
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Final Answer

The top three rows' high bits clue ATOMIC, TEENY-TINY, and LITTLEST.
The top three rows' low bits clue MICRO, KINDERGARTEN, and LILLIPUTIAN.
The bottom row clues ADOLESCENT, SLIM, and LIMITED.

Each of these words is a different length. Putting them in order by length and reading off the first letters gives SMALL TALK, which this puzzle certainly is!

The bottom left

In the bottom left corner, there is a set of gray pixels. Taking their RGB values and converting to Ascii gives the message Crazylatesecond. (After that is a fully-white pixel, which I assume means "message finished".) This could mean ADOLESCENT, where "crazy" is a cryptic crossword style anagram indicator.

The bottom middle

The colors between the two white squares in the bottom row all seem to have "nice" values in hexadecimal. They are:
c0c0c0; 32cd32; 4b0082; 800000.
Colorhexa lists these as Silver, Lime green, Indigo, and Maroon; the initial letters here spell SLIM. (There's most likely another, more "official" source where these are all listed; my first thought was HTML color codes, but that wasn't it.)

The bottom right

The red and blue values are all multiples of 45 (well, usually), and the green values are all numbers from 1-7. Interpreting the red and blue values as flag semaphore, then sorting by the green values gives LIMITED - which is fitting, because in the E and D one of the values was set to 255 instead of 270 (since color codes are one byte each).

Top 3 rows, part 1R

Taking only the pixels with a large red component spells out "ATOMIC".
enter image description here

Top 3 rows, part 1G

Taking only the pixels with a large green component spells out TEENYTINY in Braille.
enter image description here

Top 3 rows, part 1B

Taking only the pixels with a large blue component spells out LITTLEST in Morse code.
enter image description here

Top three rows, part 2

Each of the "large components" is at least 230. Subtracting 230 from each component and reading off red, green, and blue separately gives us three new messages...

Top three rows, part 2R

Most of the pixels are zero. The ones that aren't count up from 1 to 23, skipping 4, 10, 13, and 17. Drawing lines between the pixels (picking up your pencil during a skip) gives:
enter image description here
and $10^-6$ is MICRO.

Top three rows, part 2G

The pixels in this section are divided into three blocks.
enter image description here
Converting letters to numbers spells out "MORE NICE THAN / LONG NOSE FISH / FIVE OVER HALF", which clue KINDER, GAR, and TEN. Therefore the answer is KINDERGARTEN.

Top three rows, part 2B

The nonzero pixels in this section make letter shapes.
enter image description here
Reading off the letters based on the numbers on them (repeating for repeated letters) gives LILLIPUTIAN.

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  • $\begingroup$ All four of these are valid subanswers so far $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 28, 2017 at 20:45
  • $\begingroup$ Now all six of these are valid subanswers $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 28, 2017 at 20:52
  • $\begingroup$ (I'm slowly working on extracting the low-order bits. It's harder to do with an image editor than I expected.) $\endgroup$
    – Deusovi
    Commented Jan 28, 2017 at 21:04
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    $\begingroup$ The color names are part of the CSS specification $\endgroup$
    – Kruga
    Commented Jan 30, 2017 at 8:26

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