Use cases, split by what actually went wrong
A shoebox, a night reception, a screenshot, and a phone crop do not want the same mode. Start from the damage, then decide whether 2× was enough.
The free plan is three repairs a day, no card, no watermark on the preview. Pro and Studio are for the full-size file, 4×, face restore, and batch. Colorize is on the tool: two credits, dyes that are a guess, dust removed first. The colorize page is that mode.
Tool
AI upscaler
An upscaler predicts pixels. It does not find the photograph that was thrown away. This tool shows the original and the prediction on one slider, tells you the credit cost, and deletes both files after 24 hours.
Product photo
A product photo is evidence of an object you are about to sell. A sharper lie is worse than a soft truth, because a buyer will compare the parcel to the picture.
Real estate
A listing photo is a room someone will walk into. A window that gains a view, or a jamb that bends, is a different apartment.
Logo
A logo is a decision made of curves and straight lines. A photographic upscaler has learned skin and leaves. It will soften a mark while it tries to help.
Batch
A batch multiplies a decision. If the first frame invents a window or a letter, the next thirty-nine will too, and you will have spent the month to learn it.
Wedding
A reception is low light, motion, and people you are not allowed to genericize. The dress, the face, and the room are three different defects.
Increase size
Size is a number of pixels. Quality is whether those pixels are honest. A bigger file can be a larger blur, and the calculator will not save you from that.
AI enhancer
Enhancing is a set of modes with prices, not a single magic button. The prediction can be sharper and still be the wrong picture.
Landscape
Foliage, water, and cloud are the textures a model most wants to redraw. A crisper lie about a skyline is still a lie.
Instagram
A feed displays a square or a 4:5 crop far below the 3,200 px free download. Most camera photos need a crop, not a model.
Repairs
Pixelated image
Pixelation is a hole in the grid. The squares are either a screenshot, a nearest-neighbor resize, or a JPEG that already threw the samples away. Making those squares larger does not bring the photograph back.
Grainy photo
Grain you chose is texture. Noise you did not choose is a veil. The repair is not “make it smooth.” It is to lift high-ISO speckle, scanner dust, and color blotches while the edge of a cheek or a brick stays put.
Unblur
Unblur is for a photograph that went soft: the camera missed, the bus moved, or someone enlarged a small file until the edges melted. It is not a promise that a completely defocused frame will grow the letters back.
Face restore
A face that fell apart at low resolution is a specific failure. The eyes become dots, the mouth a smear, and a general sharpener draws edges that are not a person. Face restore is aimed at that mush. It can also invent a slightly different person, which is why it is not on the free plan.
Old photo
An old print fails in layers: the paper yellowed, the scan added dust, the face went soft, and sometimes the emulsion is simply gone. This tool can denoise, unblur, enlarge, and rebuild a collapsed face. It will not repaint a torn corner or invent color.
Colorize
Colorize is a real mode. It paints a plausible palette onto a black-and-white photograph. The dyes are a guess, not a recovered record. It costs two credits and runs on the free tool.
Denoise
Denoise is the mode for speckle that was never a choice. It is not a skin smoother and it is not an upscaler. Run it when the veil is the problem, and stop when the edges you care about start to dissolve.
Low resolution
HD is a screen size, not a moral category. A 1280-pixel-wide file is already HD. A 400-pixel crop is not, and enlarging it invents the difference. This page is about that invention, and about when you should not bother.
Print
Printers ask for pixels, not for a feeling of sharpness. A 4×6 at 300 ppi is 1,200 by 1,800 pixels. If you already have that, another upscale only magnifies the softness. If you do not, 2× or 4× is a specific gap, and you can measure it.
Phone photo
A phone photo goes soft for ordinary reasons: the hand moved, the tap focused on the background, night mode averaged several frames into wax, or a crop was exported too small and then enlarged. The fix depends on which of those happened.
Screenshot
A screenshot is already pixels. Enlarging it repeats them. If the screenshot is of a photograph, a product, or a face, an upscaler can guess a continuous image underneath. If it is of type, a button, or a spreadsheet, the model will try to turn the letters into texture. Do not ask it to.
Scanned photo
A scan is a photograph of a photograph, made by a machine with a lamp and a sensor. The dust might be on the glass. The softness might be the scanner’s interpolation. Fix those before you blame the print, and do not expect a tear in the paper to heal.
Sharpen
Sharpening is a claim that an edge was already there and only needs to be easier to see. If the edge was never recorded, a sharpen slider invents one, usually as a bright line.
Portrait
A portrait fails when the repair is sharper and the sitter is gone. Skin, eyes, and the gap in the teeth are the record. Crispness is optional.
Motion blur
Motion blur is a streak in a direction. Missed focus is a soft disk. They are not the same defect, and only the short streak has a chance.
Faded photo
Fade is a loss of dye or a stain of the paper. It is not a missing resolution, and enlarging it first only prints the loss larger.
Blurry text
Letters are a code, not a texture. A model that makes them darker can also make them different. If the words are the point, read them after the repair.
Night photo
Night photographs are noisy because the sensor raised its gain. The noise has a color. The lights may also be streaks. Those are two repairs, and the order matters.
JPEG artifacts
JPEG throws samples away in squares. Upscaling the squares without looking at them prints the damage larger and gives it a halo.
Out of focus
Missed autofocus is a soft disk on the subject. Depth of field is a soft background you chose. Only the first one is a candidate for unblur.
Damaged photo
Dust sits on the picture. A tear is the picture, interrupted. A model that heals a tear is writing a piece of paper that is gone.
Avatar
A profile crop is a face with too few pixels and a circle waiting to hide the mistakes. Sharpness is not identity.
Document photo
A page of type photographed on a desk is a bad scan. The right tool is often a scanner. When the phone photo is all you have, read every figure after the repair.