Idiot's Newbie Guide to Upscaling Photos

Newbie question :smile:

I have hundreds of photos of the same annual event dating back over 20 years. They are in various formats; jpg, CR2, Hiec, Raw

I’d like to make them the best they can be for publishing online for possible sale.

My exports so far appear to be no better, just bigger than the originals.

Can anyone give me an idiot’s guide for default settings?

Thanks in advance.

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What software are you using? Gigapixel or PhotoAI?

I’m using Gigapixel

I don’t use GPAI much these days, having already upscaled all my old JPG scans and digital images.
I have always set my upscaling for a 4k TV, but that’s something that you need to decide for yourself.
There is no longer a comparison view in the version I use (7.0.5), but I’d suggest using the default suggestions initially and then see if any of the other algorithms produce a better result. Generally, as a non-professional, I am happy with the defaults, but there are also the sliders you can move to modify the result.
So I suggest turning on the both the AI Model and Settings to auto as shown below and see what you get.
I can’t recall if more recent versions of GPAI have text restore as in TPAI. If so, with an image like this, I’d try it, although it is less likely to produce a decent result with non-Latin scripts as here.
You can also select whether you want a split screen or side by side view. Here, it’s side by side. You can see that there is a marked improvement.

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IF you are using face recovery, be sparing with it. If the face recovery strength is too high, the faces look plastic. Also, I don’t know if the latest version allows you to select which faces to recover. In this example, I don’t want the faces in the background to be recovered, since they need to be out of focus in my view. I’d use TPAI for this image, since they can be toggled on and off there.

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Thank you for the detailed suggestions. I’ll certainly give that a try.