Is it possible to increase resolution in an existing image?

[VenusAndMars]

Hi. opening.download is a site that says in its blurb: 'In addition to increasing or decreasing the resolution of images, drawings, pictures, there are other possibilities . . .'
Howzat?! To me it seems im-effing-possible to increase resolution in an existing image. How can you create something out of nothing? Interpolation? That's fakery to me.

Thank you.

[jagabo]

There are many ways to increase resolution. Some are more convincing than others.

[SaurusX]

Indeed there are many ways to upscale images and video. Welcome to the future.

[VenusAndMars]

There are many ways to increase resolution. Some are more convincing than others.

Exactly how do they work and what are the ways?

[VenusAndMars]

Indeed there are many ways to upscale images and video. Welcome to the future.

Exactly how do they work and what are the ways?

[SaurusX]

There are old methods of resizing and sharpening. The new approach uses AI networks that have learned how to map a lower res image into a high res image by filling in the missing pieces with information from its training dataset. There are many such networks and they continue to only get better. SwinIR, OmniSR, HAT, and DAT being the most current and cutting edge.

https://github.com/zhengchen1999/DAT

[VenusAndMars]

There are old methods of resizing and sharpening. The new approach uses AI networks that have learned how to map a lower res image into a high res image by filling in the missing pieces with information from its training dataset. There are many such networks and they continue to only get better. SwinIR, OmniSR, HAT, and DAT being the most current and cutting edge.

https://github.com/zhengchen1999/DAT

Okay, thanks. So the pixels added come from an AI systems' training dataset. But they weren't, and cannot have been, in the original image. It looks like higher resolution but isn't really because that would have been like magic. There are a definite number of pixels in the original image and no amount of AI trickery can change that fact.

[jagabo]

Nobody claims the upscaling produces new pixels that match reality. Just that they look realistic, or at least better and sharper than simple interpolation.

When it comes to video, one typically watches them full screen. Simple resizing algorithms produce fuzzy, jagged edges. So a better algorithm, one that produces sharp but smooth edges, is highly desirable.

Go to Youtube and view some of the upscaling comparisons there.

[_Al_]

Future is simply scary, because what is fake and what is actually real, would be paid in gold.

In current time frame it is just starting. Imagine a house in a distance. A trained model would blow it up and draw windows, doors more precisely in detail. One would say it is amazing, but a dude who actually knows the house, would say it is not that accurate, close but made up. In the meantime that picture is out there and someone is using it for something else, this is the principle of social media today.

[rgr]

Hi. opening.download is a site that says in its blurb: 'In addition to increasing or decreasing the resolution of images, drawings, pictures, there are other possibilities . . .'
Howzat?! To me it seems im-effing-possible to increase resolution in an existing image. How can you create something out of nothing? Interpolation? That's fakery to me.

Thank you.

Download Topaz Photo AI and test it.

[Selur]

That's fakery to me.

Shouldn't that be true for most image/video filtering?
Tons of filter like denoising, chroma changes etc. all basically change information to something that isn't there in the original,.. by using some heuristic. Frame and resolution interpolation, etc. are just on the extremer side and use other (often less understandable) heuristics.

[Axel Slingerland]

...because that would have been like magic.

It all depends on your perspective on available technology and the "unknown" factors of it. There was a time when seeing an image on a TV screen might have seemed like magic to some people, if they had never heard of such a thing. The same can be said for the first computers, cars or even a microwave oven. There's always something new and better than what was available in the past. It's the age of modern technology.

[Sharc]

Also depends how one defines "resolution" and what one expects from an "resolution increase". See for example the posts requesting help for reading blurry/low resolution number plates and similar.
Also take a look at the discussion here, especially post#16:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/402570-best-way-to-sharpen-this
What is real, what is "fake"?

[Quint]

Best way to upscale:
Take a better camera.
Go back to the point where the shot was done.
Make a new shot with higher resolution.

[jagabo]

Don't forget the time machine.

[Cornucopia]

From a purist, theoretical point of view, the phrase "you cannot get something for nothing" applies, and so ALL forms of interpolation or extrapolation are GUESSES and not real new data, so there is no such thing as an increase in resolution.

But, from a practical point of view, some forms of guessing are better than others, depending on their application with different data sets.

Generative AI, being designed with specific reference data sets, can be amazingly "accurate" in its guesses, but only when used on data that very closely matches the reference data set.
Here, the phrase "you can fool some of the people all of the time and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time " comes into play.
And you also can only "improve" (good guess) on what is given in proportion to the quality of the original. So an sd video cannot be greatly improved as well as an hd or uhd file can.
To go to an extreme, think of this: I have a 16:9 image of a license plate and I want to improve legibility: i can make many meaningful and possibly helpful guesses if my 16:9 image is 1600x900 pixels, compared to fewer & more mediocre guesses if it were 160x90 pixels, and scant terrible guesses if it were 16x9 pixels (whether the guessing is procedural algorithms, AI, or man-made guesses).


Scott

[_Al_]

There's always something new and better

Like electric guitar invention as a progress from a classical guitar, 100% agree , but with enhancing images we are entering a territory where stuff is being made up, I think that is not a magic. You enhance an old photograph, where you give a person new hair, it just look like persons haircut of that day, but it is not. It just looks like that. Old technology was sort of not enough, blurred images, we had to imagine, it was not conclusive, but now it is going to be simply presented as a fact, that imagination(of AI, though using models for that sort, nevertheless made up stuff). Who is going to be a judge what is not important and what is too much to introduce a substantial error with a consequences while enhancing.

[Quint]

There's always something new and better

Like electric guitar invention as a progress from a classical guitar, 100% agree

I don't at all.

[rgr]

Best way to upscale:
Take a better camera.
Go back to the point where the shot was done.
Make a new shot with higher resolution.

If it's a wedding video, you can simply hire a plastic surgeon and redo the party