Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Best AI Image Upscaler for macOS?
- Thread starter Yr Blues
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Not sure if this is what you mean by "AI Image Upscaler for MacOS" but Topaz Labs offers Gigapixel, which does a very nice job on images.... I've used it a few times.
I will second this recommendation. Their other products are pretty good too
.I'll third the recommendation for Gigapixel . Denoise is pretty good , too
Gigapixel results do indeed look good. I remember way back when they started trying to do "fractal upscaling" and it did nothing other than take absurd amounts of computing time. AI upscaling is the first upscaling that is actually working, at least sometimes. I've been tracking the various attempts to upscale Deep Space Nine, and AI is also routinely fooled by certain types of scenes of course, but overall it's so promising compared to what was, before, essentially all useless technologies.
Speaking of which, Gigapixel looks to be for still images only? Anything out there yet (for Mac) that's specific to AI upscaling of multimedia files? Or did I miss something in the Gigapixel description?
Speaking of which, Gigapixel looks to be for still images only? Anything out there yet (for Mac) that's specific to AI upscaling of multimedia files? Or did I miss something in the Gigapixel description?
I have been using Pixelmator Pro now for this with the typical mixed success. It's absolutely fantastic in some circumstances, and for the price you just can't beat it. Just don't expect it to work universally well on all images. I've had excellent luck with it when I want to magnify a small section part of a high-quality original (i.e. when I didn't have sufficient optical zoom to capture my subject but took the shot anyway knowing I would manually crop the photo to zoom in and hope for the best.)
On the other hand, and this should probably be expected, it's especially fooled by extremely low-resolution highly-compressed originals. I was a very early adopter of digital cameras. Remember the old Sony digitals that created 640x480 ultra-compressed jpegs on floppies? Yep, I had one. I always had a real film camera at the same time though, for anything important. Early consumer-level digitals were truly *awful*. Pixelmator Pro's ML Super Resolution does not do a good job on these, as the jpeg artifacts are so prevalent that the scaler may be interpreting them (my guess here) as details it is supposed to retain. Regardless, that's a good example of where, unfortunately, ML Super Resolution would be wonderful if it worked but fails every time to produce good results. Basically garbage in -> garbage out.
Photomator for the Mac (like for iPhone and iPad) has a nice AI upscale, denoise, band removal, and more.
Topaz Photo AI does a nice job; it is a pretty slick compilation of the features in Gigapixel and two of their other programs (Topaz Sharpen and Topaz DeNoise).
I've been really happy with what Lightroom can do with the "Super Resolution" tool, which IIRC gives 4x the number of pixels.
I've found that in particular it's done things like make fuzzy signs perfectly legible provided of course it has enough to work with. All in all I've found it a useful tool, although it thrives on having a decent bit of GPU grunt to make it work. As a comparison, working with a 40-45mp original(Fuji X-T5 or Nikon D850) it takes 10-15 minutes using the Iris Pro integrated GPU in my 2015 MacBook Pro. The built-in RX570 in my 2019 iMac takes 2-3 minutes. An RX580 in an eGPU box will run it in under a minute on either computer.
I've not compared it side by side with others, but it works for me. My images generally pass through Lightroom at some point anyway, so if a particular tool in it is "good enough" it's what I tend to use.
I've found that in particular it's done things like make fuzzy signs perfectly legible provided of course it has enough to work with. All in all I've found it a useful tool, although it thrives on having a decent bit of GPU grunt to make it work. As a comparison, working with a 40-45mp original(Fuji X-T5 or Nikon D850) it takes 10-15 minutes using the Iris Pro integrated GPU in my 2015 MacBook Pro. The built-in RX570 in my 2019 iMac takes 2-3 minutes. An RX580 in an eGPU box will run it in under a minute on either computer.
I've not compared it side by side with others, but it works for me. My images generally pass through Lightroom at some point anyway, so if a particular tool in it is "good enough" it's what I tend to use.
Due to a couple of funerals this year I had to develop slide show videos for the receptions after the service. As various family members sent me photos, noone knew where many of the the originals were and they were Facebook snags. It is unbelievable how Facebook denegrates photos - try it with one of your own where you know the quaity of the original upload...then download it from Facebook. Even those that I downsized to for web - 2500px and 280dpi - returned 1426px 72 dpi!
One method was straight photo of screen illuminated (in lightroom) with macro lens. Only did that with one, but it was the primary being professionally printed and framed for display. Original Facebook snag wouldn't even support a 4x6 print, with file size suggesting wallet print...forget about 11x14! But that is one way and you already have the digital camera to create a new RAW file.
For the majority, Topaz mentioned earlier is arguably the leader, however when looking at reviews, right up there was On1 Photo RAW. Both have their strengths. I didn't own Topaz but did have an earlier version of On1 and was cheaper to upgrade to 2023. Worked great.
One method was straight photo of screen illuminated (in lightroom) with macro lens. Only did that with one, but it was the primary being professionally printed and framed for display. Original Facebook snag wouldn't even support a 4x6 print, with file size suggesting wallet print...forget about 11x14! But that is one way and you already have the digital camera to create a new RAW file.
For the majority, Topaz mentioned earlier is arguably the leader, however when looking at reviews, right up there was On1 Photo RAW. Both have their strengths. I didn't own Topaz but did have an earlier version of On1 and was cheaper to upgrade to 2023. Worked great.