Blog
Notes on building Pixmend, and on repairing images inside the browser.
Enlarging a screenshot, and what it will not fix
Screenshots enlarge well everywhere except the small text, and recapturing beats enlarging whenever you can.
What "free" means in a free image upscaler
Server GPUs cost money, so a free upscaler recovers it somewhere — in credits, a watermark, an output cap, or a sign-up.
How to read the three settings before you upscale
Mode, scale and denoise are the only choices there are. Mode decides the result, and x2 is not the faster option.
Enlarging a small icon or avatar
What limits a tiny avatar is usually the copy you kept, not the tool. Find the largest original before enlarging.
When your artwork is short of print resolution
A 350 dpi print size is really a pixel count, so convert it first and see how far short your file actually is.
When your browser cannot run Pixmend
Pixmend needs WebGPU and has no slow fallback, so the fix is the browser or the machine, not a setting in the page.
Why images look soft or blocky, and what actually fixes it
Soft images have three different causes, and only two of them can be repaired. Telling them apart is quick.
How to upscale an image without uploading it anywhere
You can enlarge and clean up an image entirely inside your browser, with nothing sent to a server.
When an AI upscaler turns a face into someone else
Generative upscalers invent detail that was never in the frame, which is why a face can come back as someone else.
Making product photos sharp enough for a storefront
Product images fail at the zoom view, not the thumbnail. The fix starts with the largest original you have.
Removing JPEG noise from an image
The blocks and shimmer in a JPEG are compression damage, and they have to be cleaned as the image is enlarged.
Scanning old photographs and cleaning them up
Most of the quality of a restored photograph is decided at the scanner, before any processing happens at all.
Enlarging a transparent PNG without a dark fringe
A dark halo after upscaling a PNG means the colour under the transparent pixels was discarded before the model ran.
Enlarging illustration without melting the linework
Line art breaks differently from photographs, and the settings that help a photo will soften a drawing.
Is Upscayl Cloud worth paying for
Upscayl Cloud costs $24.99 a month. It is worth it for one specific reason, and free local tools cover everything else.
If you want Upscayl but cannot install it
Upscayl already runs locally and sends nothing. The only barrier is the install, and a browser removes that one step.
Looking for a waifu2x alternative
If waifu2x rejects your file size, or you would rather not upload artwork, run the same model in your browser.