Certainly, we’ve likely stumbled upon an aged family photograph in print form at some point, an image that, with the passage of time, has lost a significant amount of its quality due to inadequate preservation. It’s also plausible that we’ve encountered situations where someone has sent us a scanned version of such an image, but the resolution was notably low and re-scanning wasn’t feasible. In both scenarios, the solution is much more straightforward than it may appear.
Before the ubiquity of Artificial Intelligence, various tools were employed for upsampling and restoring old photographs, with Photoshop standing out as a prime choice. However, while Photoshop is an exceptional tool capable of fulfilling diverse tasks, it can be quite intricate to navigate if we lack a fundamental grasp of concepts such as layers and masks.
How to reduce pixelation in photos
Another alternative can be found on the Waifu website, a platform that not only enhances photo resolution but also enables us to enlarge images by up to 4 times while maintaining their resolution. The website is available in Spanish, eliminating any language barriers to fully utilize its features. To get started, we have two options for uploading the image: using its URL or uploading a file stored on our computer.
Subsequently, we need to configure settings in the following four sections:
- Style: This section requires us to define the photograph’s type, as the algorithm’s behavior will vary accordingly. The available options include Illustration, Illustration/Scans, and Photography.
- Noise Reduction: This technique minimizes the grain size (pixels) of the photo to enhance sharpness. Depending on the desired sharpness level, we can choose from none, low, medium, high, and highest.
- Resolution Increase: By reducing noise and making pixels smaller, the Resolution Increase option can be utilized, enabling image enlargement by up to 4 times.
- Image Format: In this final step, we choose the format in which we’d like the processed image returned. PNG is the most universally compatible format for editing applications, while WebP is suitable for minimizing file size. However, it’s important to note that WebP may not be supported by all photo editing and viewing applications.
Waifu employs neural networks for its operations. This project is also accessible on GitHub via the following link.