Photometric properties of magnetic elements: resolved and unresolved features

We investigate, by numerical simulations, the photometric signature of magnetic flux tubes in the solar photosphere. We show that the observed contrast profiles are determined not only by the physical properties of the tube and its surroundings, but also by the peculiarities of the observations, including the line/continuum formation height and the spatial and spectral resolution. The aim is to understand these contributions well enough so that multi-wavelength observations can begin to disentangle them.