We all have those photos that we wish were just a little bit sharper. Maybe it’s an old photo full of memories, a tiny screenshot that would look great blown up larger, or a compressed image that we wished didn’t look like such a blurry mess. Thankfully, an AI image upscaler can often save these images. While there are plenty of paid options out there, sometimes we don’t want to drop money on a quick fix. So let me introduce my two free favorites: Upscayl and Waifu2x.
Upscayl
Upscayl is a free, open-source desktop app for Windows, macOS, and Linux that runs locally on your computer. There are no watermarks, no upload limits, and your images stay private. Just drop in an image, pick an AI model, and upscale it by 2x, 4x, or more.
I’ve found it works best on real-world photos. I’ve used it on old family pictures, compressed images from the web, and low-resolution wallpapers. Upscayl usually sharpens edges and restores detail by predicting and drawing in realistic textures and fine details. It isn’t perfect—very blurry images can still look artificial when upscaled—but for a free tool, the results are hard to beat.
Waifu2x
Despite the amusing name, Waifu2x isn’t just for anime fans. Although it was trained on anime images in the beginning, it’s become one of the best tools for upscaling illustrations while reducing image noise. Due to its original purpose, Waifu2x excels at anything with clean lines such as anime, manga, digital art, game sprites, and pixel art.
On those types of images, I’ve found that Waifu2x often preserves crisp edges better than general-purpose upscalers. It also includes adjustable noise reduction, which helps clean up heavily compressed images before enlarging them.
I love and frequently use both of these image upscalers. I recommend that if you’re working with photos, start with Upscayl. If you’re restoring artwork or retro game graphics, Waifu2x is the way to go. And between the two, you’ll have an excellent AI upscaler for almost any image.
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