[HN Gopher] Upscayl - Free and Open Source AI Image Upscaler
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Upscayl - Free and Open Source AI Image Upscaler
Author : faebi
Score : 279 points
Date : 2024-03-31 20:45 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| wruza wrote:
| If like me you're using Real-ESRGAN-ncnn-vulkan [1] and are
| curious what upscayl-ncnn CLI [2] changed from it, there's not
| much and nothing substantial [3]. Not a criticism, just wanted to
| learn whether it's worth upgrading to for a CLI tool ($subj is a
| separate GUI app based on it).
|
| [1] https://github.com/xinntao/Real-ESRGAN-ncnn-vulkan
|
| [2] https://github.com/upscayl/upscayl-ncnn
|
| [3] https://github.com/xinntao/Real-ESRGAN-ncnn-
| vulkan/compare/m...
| pluto_modadic wrote:
| I mean... if people prefer a GUI that's not a bad thing...
| amelius wrote:
| Especially for something involving graphics.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Upscayl NCNN has several fixes (like latest vulkan, bug fixes,
| feature additions) and is coming up with more soon (we just
| haven't pushed the changes). Also working on CPU support.
|
| If you're going to use Real-ESRGAN, you're going to have to
| deal with a lot of issues and a codebase that hasn't been
| updated in a long time. Afaik, Upscayl NCNN is the only project
| maintaining Real-ESRGAN NCNN as of now.
| wruza wrote:
| I've only used -i -o -n mode, but for me that just works. And
| when something just works, I tend to see "a codebase that
| hasn't been updated in a long time" as a good thing generally
| :)
|
| (Don't take it personally, it's my burnout from modern
| software cycles.)
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| I understand. With Upscayl it's a little more configurable.
|
| For example, you can add compression to the images, change
| the format (which Real-ESRGAN can't always do), drag and
| drop images, have extra models not shipped by default and
| in future even have face enhancement.
| __rito__ wrote:
| I came to the comments just to ask this.
|
| I have used RealESRGAN for some years now, and several pictures
| hang on my house that were enlarged using this.
|
| I enlarged a lot of old pictures from family albums, and then
| fixed the bad spots with something like Photoroom, Snapseed,
| etc., and then sent them to be printed.
|
| Works really great.
|
| And not only that, if I find an old picture on the internet
| that is low res with no high res found after much google-fu,
| Duckduckgo, or Kagi, I use RealESRGAN to upscale, and then use
| it as my wallpaper, presentation background or whatever!
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Yes! I Real-ESRGAN is still the best algorithm for enhancing
| images. The only algorithm better than it is Topaz's but
| that's to be expected from a paid product.
|
| Real-ESRGAN can get better with a better trained model too,
| which is on Upscayl's roadmap.
| sgc wrote:
| Does anybody have experience training/finetuning Real-
| ESRGAN models? I downloaded one of their datasets to see
| what they are working with, and it has 800 images at ~3Mp
| resolution. I am curious if others have results based on
| higher resolutions + more/fewer images in the dataset? I
| would like to use it for fine art paintings by period /
| style, etc.
| graevy wrote:
| upscayl is very approachable, but lacked many features i needed.
| i ended up using https://github.com/AUTOMATIC1111/stable-
| diffusion-webui after upscaling became part of my regular
| workflow, but for someone who just needs a few images enhanced,
| it's an ideal tool.
| zebomon wrote:
| I tried this out back in December. It is very straightforward.
| Would recommend for anyone who is testing the waters and just
| trying to start exploring the various tools.
|
| From my understanding though, the quality is pretty far behind
| that of the cutting edge. A friend recently recommended Topaz to
| me, but that isn't open source.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| The quality is actually comparable in some places. Upscayl
| being a free project though, does not have its own model yet
| and as such, we depend on community models (which are great in
| their own right).
|
| I do have plans to create our own robust model though, once I
| collect enough money :)
|
| https://ckovalev.com/midjourney-ai/guide/upscaling-ai-art-fo...
| __rito__ wrote:
| What models do you use to upscale images other than
| RealESRGAN?
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| We have a custom-models repository with several models.
| Upscayl by default ships with 6 models.
| kristopolous wrote:
| extras tab in a1111 is really the best results I can get. You
| need to know what all those options mean of course - it's a
| more complicated interface for sure
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| xz utils is open source, so whats your point?
| esafak wrote:
| What's the state of the art?
| liuliu wrote:
| SUPIR and other diffusion based models.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| But doesn't that defeat the purpose of upscaling? I see a lot
| of people promoting Magnific AI (which costs $40 a month) but
| it's not really an upscaler. It's more of an AI repainter. It
| replaces most details by re-imagining them instead of
| guessing the original details. I think we should be clear
| about what an AI Upscaler is and what an AI re-painter is.
| liuliu wrote:
| ESRGAN is the same thing. You cannot recover signal that
| are already lost without additional information (in
| Diffusion case, model's prior). Upscaler are hallucinators
| by that definition.
| wruza wrote:
| But results differ in perception. ESRGAN doesn't
| hallucinate whole [sub]objects and that puts it into a
| different category. Latent/denoising i2i re-scale is
| different because its parameter range doesn't really
| intersect with what ESRGAN does.
| cchance wrote:
| It can only hallucinate if your i2i noise level is high
| enough, if you're adding enough noise that the latent is
| basically filling in giant swaths of noise areas then of
| course its going to make up new stuff, thats not
| hallucinations as much as you asking the AI to draw that
| entire area as something new.
| amelius wrote:
| OK, but I do hope that the hallucinations disappear when
| you downscale (normal resize) an upscaled image (?)
| mrbluecoat wrote:
| I used to laugh so hard at those tv and movie scenes when they
| would "enhance" an image: https://youtu.be/LhF_56SxrGk
|
| I guess yesterday's science fiction is now our reality.
| palad1n wrote:
| I think I've got a twitch now, when I think about this. How
| those stupid moviemakers would say, "enhance!" and I (along
| with many of my geek brethren) were like, "there are no more
| pixels, that can't be done!"
|
| And now it exists. "Enhance" exists.
| kyriakos wrote:
| Or does it? If you enhance security footage to make a barely
| visible face recognizable it will make it but it won't be the
| person in the footage anymore.
| wood_spirit wrote:
| It would be really interesting to see what it upscales poor
| security footage to be when we know the people in the
| picture; how accurate was it?
| wruza wrote:
| The models usually bundled with ESRGAN don't enhance like
| CSI. They straighten lines and jpeg blocking a little and
| correct "subatomic" details, but cannot restore large
| areas like faces, objects, etc. It's more of an AI-
| flavored "Effects - Sharpen" than stereotypical
| "Enhance!".
| 112233 wrote:
| You probably remember this:
| https://petapixel.com/2020/08/17/gigapixel-ai-
| accidentally-a...
| kookamamie wrote:
| It does not exist. The AI models generate "what could be"
| instead of "what was", i.e. they hallucinate heavily in
| upscale tasks.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > It does not exist.
|
| The MRI scanner near you is potentially using AI to
| increase image signal, then to increase pixel count 4x
| (well, 2x in X direction, 2x in Y direction. Potentially
| also generating a slice between each slice in 3D
| datasets).
|
| If you turn off the AI and actually acquire the
| information, the scan is long, the patient moves and it
| is blurry. However if the patient is still, the non AI
| images look like the AI images.
|
| Disagreeing with it is sort of moot now - it's in the
| machines and is running. It works well, I've been using
| it daily for a few years.
|
| All vendors have it - I use the Siemens product 'Deep
| Resolve' [1]. Their PR department undersells it, in my
| view this is a bigger change than the 1.5T to 3T
| transition.
|
| [1] https://www.siemens-healthineers.com/magnetic-
| resonance-imag...
| j16sdiz wrote:
| The scanner is faster because it collect less data.
|
| The image is sharper because it have more data.
|
| Where did the missing data came from?
|
| It came from the training data set, not the patient.
|
| No matter how good the image look like, it is not
| something from from the patient.
| tomrod wrote:
| Yet, it can be "close enough" for horseshoes, hand
| grenades, and surgery.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| Which may well be, but those detectives still aren't
| going to suddenly be able to read the license plate from
| an "enhanced" blurry photo, like their TV counterparts
| were doing back in the early 00s.
| tomrod wrote:
| Correct. And the extrapolation region for the MRI is
| reasonable, I reckon, versus extrapolation into pulling
| enhanced blurry photos!
| jncfhnb wrote:
| If the model learns that it can get fundamentally the
| same information from a lower res scan then it's moot
| though.
| bozhark wrote:
| We have 7T at my old uni in Alabama
| spookie wrote:
| The better example of "Enhance!" still remains this piece of
| software: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19wgu5GZDhk
| userbinator wrote:
| It just hallucinates the details now.
| pixelesque wrote:
| Yes - I can't find it now, but a few weeks ago I saw a demo
| website for some other upscaler with an example image of a
| picture of food, and it was pretty clear that the upscaled
| "version" was different bread than the original lower-res
| version, and things like herb "sprinkles" (oregano?) in the
| original became pine nuts or something in the upscaled
| version....
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Yes, I personally think it's false advertising. AI Re-
| painter is not AI Upscaling. I even received a review on
| Mac App Store saying Upscayl is worse because it does
| upscaling instead of repainting like Magnific.
| forgingahead wrote:
| The correct phrase should have been "Hallucinate!"
| holoduke wrote:
| Except that when you try to enhance the numberplate of a
| suspected killer you get a platenumber which is based on
| avarage noise and mqybe different than reality.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| > I guess yesterday's science fiction is now our reality.
|
| That's actually what's written on https://upscayl.org, "From
| Science Fiction to Reality" haha
| sgilani wrote:
| Is there something similar for video? Or is topaz still the only
| option?
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| I still have video upscaling planned for Upscayl but we're just
| 2 people, working on Upscayl in our free time.
| yterdy wrote:
| Video2x/Waifu2x GUI. Unfortunately, the models they ship with
| are tuned towards anime.
| feverzsj wrote:
| The upscaled image feels sharper but loses some detail.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Every model will give you different results. You can try the
| custom models as well to see what works for you :)
| jiveturkey wrote:
| This should have been called Enhanse (sticking with the
| misspelling theme)
| _fw wrote:
| UpScayl is great, I use it a lot for work. Upscaling low-res
| graphics and illustrations for use in graphics in a pinch,
| upscaling portrait photos of people for print and photoshop...
| upscaling old copies of things for editing purposes, you name it.
|
| It's not perfect but no alternative is. Bloody useful though.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| I'm glad you like it! We're working on making it even better :D
| and with the introduction of Upscayl Cloud the possibilities
| for professionals will be endless (within reason of course,
| haha)!
| _fw wrote:
| Like it? My brother I was trying to hide my enthusiasm to
| look cool in front of people on YC.
|
| I use UpScayl pretty much every day and doing so feels like
| magic every time. Your user interface tweaks here and there
| are always appreciated and UpScayl is a joy to use.
|
| Feel proud, UpScayl is witchcraft and I love it
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Haha thank you so much! Always a joy to see a happy user!
|
| Mind if I showcase your comment on the Upscayl website? :D
| _fw wrote:
| Yeah boiii. I'll email you a proper quote tomorrow if
| that works?
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Yessir!
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| I wonder if image upscaling is actually reflective of a greater
| disease in society: we are exceptionally obsessed with holding
| onto everything. I mean, my God, if the situation comes down to a
| desire to upscale an image, just let the image go.
| drusepth wrote:
| There are lots of reasons someone might want to upscale
| something, not just "holding onto everything".
|
| I painted something on my iPad over the last few weeks. I'll be
| upscaling it so it's high enough resolution to do a large print
| on my wall. It's not something I need to "just let the image
| go" for.
|
| (And, of course, there's nothing wrong with holding onto
| things...)
| pvankessel wrote:
| Are there any models out there for cleaning up an image, not just
| upscaling? I have a bunch of old photos taken on early low-res
| point-and-shoots that have JPEG artifacts etc and this seems like
| something a modern model could easily be fine-tuned to resolve,
| but every few months I look around and have yet to find anything
| iampims wrote:
| Check out these models:
| https://replicate.com/collections/image-restoration
|
| Most of them can be run locally, but I'd recommend testing them
| with replicate before investing in understanding
| cog/docker/hf...
| pvankessel wrote:
| Oh this sounds like exactly like what I've been looking for,
| can't wait to give these a try - many thanks
| yterdy wrote:
| Unfortunately, for video, nothing I've seen yet has matched the
| quality of Topaz Labs' (paid) tool. Clarity and consistency
| always seem to be an issue with other implementations. If love to
| be proven wrong because I have a project that's stalled due to
| the low quality/resolution of the source.
| aktuel wrote:
| I still find current upscalers surprisingly underwhelming
| compared to advances in other areas.
| ewuhic wrote:
| On a related note, what would be the equivalent app for watermark
| removal?
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| Another upscaler, for images and video
|
| https://github.com/k4yt3x/video2x
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