Question 1

Will it work on AI-generated images?

Accepted Answer

Yes — chain it after a Standard generation to ship at HD without paying the HD credit cost. Many users generate at Standard ($0.05/img) and upscale ($0.05/img) for a $0.10 final HD result vs. $0.21 native HD.

Question 2

How does it compare to Photoshop's 'Preserve Details'?

Accepted Answer

Real-ESRGAN reconstructs missing detail with a learned model rather than interpolating pixels. The result is sharper hair, edges, and textures — better than Photoshop on noisy or low-res sources, comparable on clean ones.

Question 3

Can it 4× or 8× upscale?

Accepted Answer

Run it twice. First pass 2×, then 2× again for 4×. Quality holds well up to 4×. Beyond that, the model starts hallucinating texture, so we cap each pass at 2×.

Question 4

Will it introduce artefacts?

Accepted Answer

Real-ESRGAN is tuned to be artefact-resistant. On heavily compressed JPEGs it removes blocking but can over-smooth flat regions; on clean inputs it's near-flawless. Compare against the original by toggling in the editor.

Question 5

Is the output watermarked?

Accepted Answer

No — paid users get clean PNG/WebP output. Free trial upscales carry a small footer mark.

Upscale image 2×

Upscale lives on the workspace

Example prompts

What you get

Real-ESRGAN model

Costs 1 credit

PNG / WebP output

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