Today I’m going to be upscaling Waifus. By the end, hopefully you’ll understand
the strengths and weaknesses of upscaling your most beloved otaku-crush when using the
various programs shown in this video.
In an attempt to avoid unnecessary drama, I shall be upscaling waifus which do not exist.
Which is all of them. But just to be doubly sure, I used samples from ‘thiswaifudoesnotexist’,
which uses AI to generate a waifu. And now I’ll be using AI to upscale that AI-generated
image. Isn’t this amazing. But FIRST, you see all these weird AI-generated
artifacts? Yeah, we should probably get rid of these as they’ll confuse the upscalers.
By crushing these images down to a super small size, we can remove artifacts such as these,
plus it provides upscalers with a crisp, clear image with which to attempt the upscaling
on. And there’s another reason for doing this as well that will become apparent later.
So THESE are the images that I’ll be upscaling. Which upscaling technology will restore this
precious Weeb-bait back up to the original resolution the best?!
Let’s start with Waifu2x. This one is the easiest for you to use, too- just load the
webpage up, put a picture in and convert it. It takes all of 5 seconds. As the name may
suggest, this is designed for upscaling waifus. Because believe it or not: there’s more
to upscaling than simply upping the resolution of an image! All upscalers have to be trained
on example images, and their results will mimic the style of those examples images that
they’ve been trained on. It’s why you’d use a different upscaler to upscale a landscape
than you would, say, a Holo. And it’s something that most people don’t seem to understand,
because I’m forever being told to use waifu2x to upscale real-life pictures and it doesn’t
work like that! It will not upscale landscapes correctly!
Now this site DOES have a photo option, but from my experience it plays things too safe,
doesn’t add much ‘detail’ and ends up making things look too waxy and plasticy for
reality, so I don’t recommend this site for upscaling photos unless you need something
done quickly. But no matter how many times I tell them, people insist Waifu2x will produce
the best results. I guess I can’t blame them; much like the upscalers themselves,
when the only images some people view are waifus, they end up expecting everything to
look like a waifu. So, this is the first image, and here it is,
run through waifu2x. What an excellent result. It nicely condenses lines into convincing,
wavy brush-strokes, and it smoothly transitions between different shades of colour.
Here’s the next one… and I’m particularly impressed with the mouth, which is a waifu
mouth if I’ve ever seen one. Here’s the next one, again good result,
And the next one… …it doesn’t do so well with this mess
of an image. It keeps the hairline, but the eye seems to have melted. But this wasn’t
a good waifu image in the first place. Garbage in, garbage out.
And yeah, this one’s good as well, even if the eye ends up looking slightly squarish.
But that’s what happens when you spend all day staring at waifus on a screen!
So while I may not think highly of its photo-upscaling capabilities, when it comes to upscaling waifus,
waifu2x is the upscaling solution to beat.
Next is Gigapixel. This is software that you have to pay for, which I’ve been using for
a few years now. Is it THE best? No, maybe not. I know better for waifus, faces and scenery.
But I still like this software because it’s convenient. It’s got a few different algorithms
I can choose from, enough flexibility for me to customise it to my liking and it’s
fast for bulk upscales. I can definitely say I’ve got my money’s worth out of it, though
I haven’t used it to upscale waifus until this week.
Using the Standard setting, it makes it look more like a painting than a cartoon. Getting
some FF9 Beatrix vibes from this. But it’s not what I want! Well actually it is, but
it’s not what you want! Moving to LINES results in a sharper image,
but one that’s plagued with unwanted colour artifacts. Of course, I know these programs
well enough to know that I can then run it through a denoiser to remove these and the
result becomes rather acceptable again. And with enough messing about, the Art and
CG also produces a rather drawn look to it. Still… probably not the art style we’re
looking for. Because just as Waifu2x isn’t great for pictures, Gigapixel turns out to
be not so great for Waifus. But here is how all 6 images look, if run
through gigapixel’s various different settings. Not art style we’re looking for, but interesting
nonetheless.
The last program I’m going to try is kind of confusing. It’s Cupscale, which is a
more user-friendly version of ESRGAN- which is another upscaler people keep telling me
to use because they’ve seen it on 2 minute papers and think they’re experts. It’s
still a pain to set up, but once you’ve got it, you can download different upscaling
models and tailor it to your heart’s content. You can even blend 2 different models together!
It’s an upscaling addict’s dream come true.
Some of these do provide EXCELLENT results on landscapes, like this foxglove example
just here. But can I cupscale a waifu?
Using WaifuGANv3, I got THIS. Urgh! Not what I’m looking for.
Detoon produced an oddly hazy, cross-hatched appearance.
Finally, with FSDedither I got an EXCELLENT result. The only problem I have with this
is that it’s changed the colour profile of the image. It’s not that the result is
displeasing, I just don’t like the idea that all colours are going to be shifted like
this. The browns have become so deep and velvety that they’re on the verge of becoming purple!
The Manga109 attempt model is more faithful to the original colours, but results in a
few visible artifacts in the narrower details of the image.
But you know the best way to upscale a Waifu? It’s by Super yandare’ing it. What an
EXCELLENT upscale! It’s not like I’m even into waifus, but if I had to have one, it
would be this one. Earlier I said there was another benefit to
upscaling from downsized images- it’s because I can now compare the upscaled versions with
the original, high-res waifus to see how well the upscaling has replicated the original
art-style, and in which ways it has deviated from it. And whether or not that’s a good
thing. In Superyandere’s case, I think it’s amazing how well it has preserved the details
from the original image considering it was upscaled from a file just 1/64th its size.
Imagine a future when animes are mere 50 MB files which then use real-time upscaling to
make them look as detailed as your screens can allow! In my opinion, any issues you may
spot with Superyandere’s upscale can be blamed on the original’s shortcomings. If
I was being critical, I’d say it’s changed its art style to be more like a cartoon than
the original was? But then, it’s not like the original was a ‘real’ art style in
the first place- its details were from artificial-looking AI-generated patterns, which this upscale
has done away with. In my opinion, this is exactly what I wanted from an upscale of this
image. And in that regard, this has got to be brushing against the upper limits of what
you can hope to achieve by upscaling an image. It’s constrained by the original here! I’d
say it’s actually improved on reality! And by reality, I mean the original fictional
AI-generated image. Am I… losing touch with reality?...
It’s just a shame that there are still hints of colour changes with this upscale, and not
just from the sharpening. But whatever. I just want to get this video over and waifu
with. So here are all 6 images, upscaled in cupscale,
using Super Yandere to get them from 128 to 1024 pixels.
In conclusion: you can waifu a waifu. You can cupscale a waifu! But don’t EVER gigapixel
a waifu. Because people don’t like it. I will provide links in the description for
you to check out the upscaling programs for yourself. I think I’ve upscaled enough Waifus
to last me a while. If you want my opinion, I think Super Yandere
produced the best results. They were the sharpest, and most visually appealing of the upscales.
Better than the originals, in my opinion! But in doing so, they committed a terrible
sin, by betraying the original’s colour profile. So if you were to use it to upscale
a movie, yes, it would look clearer, but it will never look the same as the original again!
If this upsets you, don’t worry- this is something Waifu2x does not do. Use that, and
it will keep to the original’s colours. So I guess you could say… it’s more faithful
to its waifus.