I’ve discovered that the latest Qwen-2511 performs surprisingly well at upscaling low-resolution images, even though it’s primarily an image editing model rather than a dedicated upscaler. It’s not optimized specifically for upscaling, so results aren’t always perfect—it can occasionally alter details in the image. However, its standout feature is the incredible flexibility: by tweaking the prompt and seed, you can iterate quickly to achieve exactly the outcome you want.
Source Image:
Qwen Upscale to 3MP (around 7x)
Because it’s not a specialized upscaling tool, skin textures often come out a bit too smooth or polished. The easy fix is to run a second pass with SeedVR2 or Topaz—this adds realistic texture and elevates the final result to an even higher level.
I’m running Qwen locally on my computer, and I’ve successfully upscaled images to 12 megapixels without issues. When pushing beyond 6.5MP, though, results can sometimes become unpredictable (e.g., loss of detail or artifacts). That’s why I mainly use it for repairing and enhancing low-resolution images rather than extreme upscaling.
