Improve image resolution and transform visuals
Poor photo quality and low-resolution images can undermine your designs and brand assets. AI image upscalers help designers overcome these issues by enhancing images that aren’t up to scratch.
We’ve compared 5 of the best AI image upscalers of 2024, exploring their key features, pros, and cons to help you choose the right tool for creators needs.
Image upscaling can maximize the impact of your brand materials, bring old photos to life, and streamline workflows.
AI image upscalers are trained on image datasets to predict and generate missing elements to improve image resolution and transform visuals, leveraging machine learning to enhance image quality without compromising detail.
Learn about how these tools work in Recraft's latest blog: What is an AI image upscaler?
Overview
Recraft is a leading AI tool for professional designers that generates and remixes digital images. With one-click AI image upscaling capabilities and powerful editing features, Recraft enables users to deliver compelling creations and fully customized designs.
Image upscaling is just one of the exciting features of Recraft’s AI design toolkit. Recraft V3 has just been released, which has topped AI design leaderboards and offers state-of-the-art technology that’s breaking new ground. Recraft V3 offers features that many other popular AI image-generation tools simply don’t have, including every key function, from background removal and positioning control to vector image generation, inpainting, AI mockups and more.
Here are some common use cases for Recraft’s AI image upscaling feature:
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Whether user needs to increase the resolution of your illustrations, improve website visuals or enhance digital images for printing, Recraft’s powerful Image Upscaler boosts image quality for any image (under 4 Mpx) in a few seconds. Simply upload an image and upscale it with one click.
Enhance images and export them as a PNG, JPEG, SVG or Lottie, and use Recraft’s infinite canvas and range of AI styling tools to adapt compositions.
The results are compelling, allowing designs to capture audience’s attention and deliver the desired impact.
Recraft gets 50 credits per day free for creating and adapting images. For higher credit quotas and full image ownership of adapted images, Recraft has three affordable paid subscription tiers, ranging from $10 to $48 per month, depending on any requirements and budget.
Recraft also enables extensive customization through its wider AI toolkit:
Upscale.media is an AI image enhancement product from PixelBin that increases image resolution while maintaining key details. This advanced AI image upscaler helps users reinvigorate photos and enhance image quality.
Boost low-resolution images in seconds once uploaded images or pasted an image URL to the tool. Upscale.media supports PNG, JPG, JPEG, WEBP, and HEIC files.
Once processed, upscale images by 2X, 4X, 6X, or 8X, up to a maximum of 4Mpx for free or 10Mpx if creator have a subscription.
An Enhance Quality feature can remove certain artifacts and reverse JPEG compressions to smooth edges and bring them closer to the original.
Upscale several images for free or choose from PixelBin’s paid plans for professional and commercial use, and to access other AI features. Bulk image upscaling to enhance multiple images is available to paid users.
The tool is easy to use, users can toggle between the upscaling size options, and when scrolling over your upscaled images, the cursor becomes a magnifier which zooms in on certain areas to show the increased resolution and image quality.
The free version has ads, plus only gets 3 free credits, meaning regular use requires a paid package.
iLoveIMG is an online photo editor offering image upscaling as part of its editing suite, which has other features such as a JPEG converter, background remover, and compression tool.
The AI image upscaler is free and easy to use. Upload a photo from a device, Google Drive or Dropbox and upscale images in seconds. 2X or 4X the upscaled image before downloading it. You can also resize, compress, crop or watermark the image.
Bulk image upscale processing is available for up to 3 images (and up to 6MB per file).
Premium accounts are $9 per month ($5 when paying annually), or business users can explore custom pricing plans. Paid users get the service free of ads, with customer support and volume discounts.
Image upscaling is free for non-subscribers, who can also access all the different features but are subject to file size and usage caps. Batch processing and size limitations apply across features.
While the upscaling tool is free, fast, and efficient, iLoveIMG is more suitable for general photo editing than expansive professional purposes, lacking the array of AI design tools offered by Recraft.
imgUpscaler is an AI image upscaling tool that enables users to upscale images to their desired resolution and enhance key details without losing quality.
Increase the resolution of JPEG, PNGs and WEBP files, choosing to enhance images by 200% or 400% after uploading files into the tool’s interface.
After 10-30 seconds of processing it is possible to upscale images for download up to 4K or use their integrated editing tools to crop and annotate them.
A Reimagine Upscaler tool can enhance facial images and prioritize intricate details, with creativity/resemblance level toggles and a text prompt field to remix. But it’s a bit hit and miss, plus processing time takes much longer.
imgUpscaler offers a range of pricing options, from a limited free version to Starter, Premium, and Business tiers.
Free plans offer 20 credits per month, while Starter and Premium provide 100 credits and 500 credits ($3.90 and $6.90 per month. To upscale images in bulk requires a paid plan, while Business ($19 per month) doesn’t have a usage cap.
imgUpscaler is not as fast as other solutions. Plus, the free version has ads, which can be distracting, and 20 credits per month limits scope.
The main editing features are more basic compared to Recraft’s AI features. Reimagine Upscaler adds creativity, but results are mixed.
Pixelcut is a multifunctional image editing platform offering fast AI image upscaling amongst additional features to style upscaled image.
Pixelcut’s image upscaler lets to upload JPEG, PNG or HEIC files and increase image resolution by up to 4 times the original size, and up to 4K pixels. The upscaling process takes a matter of seconds and is free to use, but there are limits – to 4X your image, you need a paid subscription.
Pixelcut offers editing features, such as background removal, erasing, and options to add text and filters. However, use of most tools, saving composition, and downloading full-quality images are premium options.
Pixelcut Pro costs $9.99 per month or $4.99 when paying an annual fee, which unlocks the solution's key AI features and design templates.
Pros and cons
While Pixelcut boasts efficient image upscaling and various editing tools, there are limitations to resolution/usage levels, plus bulk processing for upscaling multiple images and most AI features require a paid plan.
While most AI image upscalers offer limited credits or additional features from free plans, Recraft’s free version provides access to almost its entire range of features, with 50 daily AI image generation/adaptation credits per day.
While image generation competitors like Adobe, Midjourney, OpenAI, Ideogram, Flux, and Stable Diffusion each have some strengths, none of them provide all features in one place. Recraft V3 combines tools for creative flexibility, whether creators need to adjust styles, upscale images, or expand an image with outpainting. This all-in-one functionality made for professional designers and thinks in design language.
Revamp old photos or give brand assets the wow factor with Recraft!
Image Upscaler is just one of tool's cutting-edge AI features. Endlessly iterate designs and collaborate in Infinite AI canvas. Plus, Recraft V3 is pushing AI design possibilities to new heights – get fresh details about Recraft’s SOTA model.
Try Recraft for free or learn more about upscaling images with Recraft tool.
