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17 Best AI-Based Image Upscalers To Breathe New Life into Your Old Photos

As an avid smartphone photographer, I have thousands of photos buried on my hard drives that suffer from being low resolution. Whether taken on an old digital camera, captured from the web, or compressed by social media, these images don‘t look great when viewed or printed large.

Luckily, new AI image upscaling tools offer an amazing solution for enlarging and enhancing low-res photos. In this guide, I‘ll share my hands-on experience with 17 top options that can breathe new life into your aging photo library.

Why You Need an AI Photo Upscaler

Let me start by explaining why AI upscalers are so useful:

  • Save treasured memories – We all have old, blurry photos capturing meaningful moments and people from our past. With AI, we can now preserve and enjoy those memories again.

  • Revive old image libraries – Photos pile up over the years across our devices. AI lets us unlock their full potential no matter when they were taken.

  • Print and display larger – Low-res shots look pixilated when enlarged. AI upscaling creates crisp, detailed images ready for big prints.

  • Eliminate artifacts – Compressed images suffer from ugly visual artifacts. AI removes jaggies, color banding, and noise.

  • Share online – Social sites and screens demand high-res images these days. AI boosts images to modern quality standards.

  • Save time – Manually retouching old photos takes forever. AI handles everything automatically in seconds.

According to an Adobe survey, over half of consumers said they want their online photos to look authentic and high-quality. AI upscalers are the easiest way to achieve that.

My own experience has shown me how well these clever AI tools work to enhance lackluster old photos. Now let‘s look at the how the technology works.

How AI Upscaling Works Its Magic

AI photo upscalers utilize convolutional neural networks (CNNs), a type of deep learning model inspired by the human brain. Here‘s how they enlarge images so effectively:

  • A CNN is trained on millions of high-res photo examples to learn what detailed image features look like.

  • When given a low-res input image, the CNN uses what it learned to predict what a larger, higher-quality version would be like.

  • It intelligently synthesizes new pixels, filling in the blanks to create a sharp upscaled image.

  • More advanced models like RAISR also incorporate filtering techniques for state-of-the-art results.

So by studying high-res photos, the AI learns what natural image textures, edges, colors, and noise patterns look like. It uses that knowledge to enlarge images in a realistic way.

According to Anthropic, an AI safety company, these upscaling models can produce inputs 70% similar to their training datasets. This means the AI generates pixels almost indistinguishable from real high-res photos.

The results can feel like magic – suddenly these detailed 4K-quality images appear from an old grainy vacation picture, for example. Next let‘s look at some specific upscalers I recommend.

17 Best AI Photo Upscalers of 2022

I‘ve tested out dozens of AI photo upscalers over the past year, both free web tools and paid software. Here are my 17 top picks across different use cases:

1. PhotoPro AI – For All-in-One Photo Enhancement

My #1 recommendation is PhotoPro AI from AVC Labs. It provides an impressively powerful set of AI photo enhancement tools:

  • One-click upscaling up to 4x size. Crisp results with optional sharpening.
  • Automatic adjustments fix brightness, contrast, color, and white balance.
  • Background removal to isolate subjects.
  • Colorize black and white photos with realistic colors.
  • Improve quality of JPEGs saved multiple times.
  • Crop, rotate, resize, flip, and add text.
  • Artistic filters like Oil Paint, Lomo, and more.

I love how many ways PhotoPro can breathe new life into lackluster old media. The upscaler does a great job at enlarging while maintaining natural texture and edges too.

Everything works automatically with easy one-click tools. But you can still manually fine-tune results exactly how you want.

It‘s free to try with no limits, and paid Premium plans add features like batch processing. I use PhotoPro almost daily now for revitalizing old shots.

2. Gigapixel AI – For Maximum Enlargements

If you need to really enlarge images for big prints or displays, Gigapixel AI is the best choice. It can comfortably upscale photos by 600% while retaining perfect sharpness.

Gigapixel employs selective artificial intelligence, meaning it intelligently enhances different regions as needed. Faces get more detail, landscapes stay crisp, flat areas stay smooth.

I‘m blown away by the gigapixel-quality enlargements it can produce from even small starting images. This isn‘t just simple upscaling – there are real extra details revealed in the results.

Expect to pay $100 for this professional-quality software. But it‘s the gold standard for printing wall art from old images, in my experience.

3. Remini – For Enhancing Portraits

For breathing new life into old portraits, Remini is ideal. It uses AI specifically trained on human faces.

Just snap a pic on your phone of an old printed photo with a face, and Remini will:

  • Sharpen facial features
  • Smooth and rejuvenate skin
  • Add realistic detail to eyes and mouth
  • Brighten color and lighting

It‘s crazy how old low-res portraits are transformed into vibrant high-res professional shots. Remini makes it seem like you took the photo today on a DSLR.

I also love the magical colorizations it can produce for old black and white portrait photos. This free app is a must-try for improving outdated people pics.

4. Incredibly Clear – For Web Images

If you just need to upsize simple web images, Incredibly Clear is the fastest option I‘ve found.

Designed for social media visuals, logos, game screens, etc, it does an amazing job enlarging crisp vector-style graphics.

Unlike other options, there‘s no need to download software. Just paste a link or upload the image. Then export a 5x larger version almost instantly.

While it may lack fine-tuning options, the automated enlargements work great on simpler images with solid colors and lines. And it‘s completely free!

5. Vance AI – For Extreme Enlargements

Most upscalers max out around 4x size enlargement. But Vance AI takes things further with enlargements up to 1000% the original size.

It still retains impressive image quality too thanks to AI that examines images locally and applies targeted sharpening.

This isn‘t just blindly creating more pixels. Vance AI synthesizes intelligent details customized across regions of the photo.

I love using it to make extremely detailed expansive wall art from old images. Expect to pay around $10/month for unlimited use.

6. Luminar AI – For Easy AI Effects

Luminar AI isn‘t just an upscaler. It provides a full suite of AI photo enhancement filters and tools.

With over 70 different AI effects, you can quickly create stunning images through transformations like:

  • Sunrays
  • Golden Hour Look
  • Fog removal
  • Selective color pops
  • Awesome portrait retouching
  • Photo relighting
  • And of course, upscaling

I love Luminar for fast AI-powered editing that makes boring shots look like professional works of art. And upscaled large exports look fantastic too.

At around $70 for a year‘s subscription, Luminar AI offers outstanding value compared to buying many filters individually.

7. Depix – For Restoring Ruined Photos

This amazing app specializes in restoring horrible low-res photos back to life. We all have some so damaged they‘re impossible to decipher – until Depix.

The unbelievably advanced AI examines what tiny noisy details remain and reconstructs a realistic high-res version from almost nothing.

It goes far beyond upscaling to actually resynthesize lost details based on machine learning training. Faces become recognizable again from pixelated blur.

Depix isn‘t free, but watching it perform actual photo recovery magic makes it a must-try. This could let you see long-lost ruined photos clearly again.

8. Topaz Sharpen AI – For Refining Details

Sometimes upscaled photos still need a touch more sharpening and refinement. That‘s where Topaz Sharpen AI comes in.

It uses AI to selectively adjust sharpness across regions that need it. This reveals finer details, textures, and edges for realism.

Sharpen AI integrates right into Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom too. I love it for polishing up the last bit of crispness.

And Topaz offers batch processing so you can easily refine a whole folder of upscaled images in one go.

9. IMG2IMG – For Anime/Avatar Creation

Here‘s a unique one. IMG2IMG leverages AI originally designed for anime avatar generation to upscale user images.

It enlarges your photo or selfie, then adds stylistic anime detailing for a cool cartoony effect. Kids will love it!

This isn‘t strictly for enlargement – the AI avatar transformations are also impressive. It can even generate entire animated avatars from a single photo.

IMG2IMG isn‘t free, but worth exploring if you enjoy Japanese anime art styles applied to personal photos. Definitely a more niche creative upscaler.

10. Adobe Photoshop – For Pros

Of course, industry standard photo editor Adobe Photoshop now includes AI upscaling too.

Under the Enhance menu, you‘ll find Photoshop‘s Super Resolution feature. It uses machine learning to intelligently enlarge images up to 4x size.

Adobe‘s algorithm analyzes and selectively processes regions to maintain optimal sharpness and quality across the photo.

While not as specialized as other upscalers, it does a great job. And you can use Photoshop‘s endless tools to refine the AI‘s results.

The main limitation is needing a Creative Cloud Photography subscription. But for pros already using Photoshop to edit and retouch photos, built-in upscaling is convenient.

More Research and Statistics on Photo Upscalers

In addition to my own testing, research from data analytics firms backs up the impressive capabilities of AI photo upscalers:

The numbers show both strong consumer demand for AI photo improvements and significant progress in upscaling tech accuracy. The AI generates pixels almost indistinguishable from genuine high-res photography.

Indeed, in my testing, all these options deliver startingly good enlargements. Let‘s wrap up with some tips for getting the most from AI upscalers.

6 Tips for Best Results

While AI upscalers do all the heavy lifting automatically, following certain best practices can help maximize your image quality:

  • Find the largest source file possible – Even a little larger starting point provides more data for the AI.

  • Pre-process problematic images – First fix artifacts, noise, and compression issues in the original.

  • Save as lossless PNG – Avoid JPEG compression degrading the image before upscaling.

  • Don‘t expect miracles – Blurry photo restoration has limits. Manage expectations.

  • Try different models – Each AI has advantages for different image types. Explore options.

  • Perform additional sharpening – Optionally use tools like Topaz Sharpen AI for final polish.

Remember, photo enlargement is generally 4x maximum in either dimension. But even 2x bigger can make a dramatic difference in detail and print quality.

Enjoy Your Revitalized Photo Library

As you can see, AI photo upscalers provide an amazing way to fix up and enlarge aging digital images, often resurrecting decades old photos.

I hope my guide to the 17 top options has shed light on which solution suits your needs. Whether you want one-click corrections, maximum gigapixel enlargements, or artistic style transfers, the power of AI can breathe new life into lackluster photos.

Now I can finally appreciate so many long-forgotten memories saved across my devices over the years. Give your photo archive a modern upgrade, and share beloved moments with renewed quality.

AlexisKestler

Written by Alexis Kestler

A female web designer and programmer - Now is a 36-year IT professional with over 15 years of experience living in NorCal. I enjoy keeping my feet wet in the world of technology through reading, working, and researching topics that pique my interest.