  Pixel lensing, gravitational microlensing of unresolved stars, is potentially
much more sensitive and much more widely applicable than is generally
recognized. I give explicit expressions for the pixel noise induced by a
time-variable PSF, by photometric and geometric misalignment, and by discrete
pixelization, and I show that these can all be reduced below the photon noise.
Pixel lensing can be divided into two regimes. In the ``semi-classical''
regime, it is similar to classical lensing in that it measures the time scale
of individual events. In the ``spike'' regime, it measures the total optical
depth but not individual time scales. I present simple expressions for the
boundary between the two regimes and for the event rate in the latter one.
These expressions can be used to quickly classify all potential pixel lensing
experiments. Pixel lensing can measure the luminosity function as well as the
mass function of stars in target galaxies to a distance of a few Mpc. Future
space-based pixel lensing could be $\sim 5$ times more effective in the
infrared than in the optical, depending on developments in detector technology.
Pixel techniques can also be applied to non-pixel-lensing problems including
the search for unresolved variable stars and follow up observations of lensing
events found in classical lensing searches. To benefit fully from pixel-lensing
techniques, follow-up observations should have resolutions of at least 5 pixels
per FWHM.
