  G-band bright points are small-sized features characterized by high
photometric contrast. Theoretical investigations indicate that these features
have associated magnetic field strengths between 1-2 kG. Results from
observations instead lead to contradictory results, indicating magnetic fields
of only kG strength in some and including hG strengths in others. In order to
understand the differences between measurements reported in the literature, and
to reconcile them with results from theory, we analyze the distribution of
magnetic field strength of G-band bright features identified on synthetic
images of the solar photosphere, and its sensitivity to observational and
methodological effects. We investigate the dependence of magnetic field
strength distributions of G-band bright points identified in 3D
magnetohydrodynamic simulations on feature selection method, data sampling,
alignment and spatial resolution. The distribution of magnetic field strength
of G-band bright features shows two peaks, one at about 1.5 kG and one below 1
hG. The former corresponds to magnetic features,the second mostly to bright
granules. Peaks at several hG are obtained only on spatially degraded or
misalligned data. Simulations show that magnetic G-band bright points have
typically associated field strengths of few kG. Field strengths in the hG range
can result from observational effects, thus explaining the discrepancies
presented in the literature. Our results also indicate that outcomes from
spectro-polarimetric inversions with imposed unit filling-factor should be
employed with great caution.
