NiceScaler

With the continued push for higher resolutions and pixel-dense displays of today, a collateral of such a transition is to be found in the lower-quality content we look at: for better or worse, more capable displays make it easier to spot any content imperfections, and that includes the perceived sharpness in an image or video.

While you may not be able to upscale everything that you see in real-time, enhancing the clarity of the content that's important to you can go a long way. NiceScaler grants users the ability to upscale their favorite photos and videos, free-of-charge and free-of-worry.

While the talk about upscalers and AI algorithms may seem overly complicated to the casual user, the program successfully manages to provide an intuitive and accessible experience to anyone interested in upscaling. The functions laid out in the interface are easy to comprehend, and the tool does well to explain what each option does.

Right away, you are guided to drop your photo onto the program, and it'll handle the rest. You can choose between 4 distinct AI models: FSRCNN, ESPCN, LapSRN, as well as EDSR. Each comes with its own strengths and weaknesses, which the program patently outlines. Users can also pick between a x2 and x4 upscale factor, which serves to further increase clarity.

While the tool is able to upscale a photo within a few seconds on the FSRCNN AI model, videos are a bit different. Essentially, even on the quickest AI algorithm, a mere 20-second video took about 10 minutes to upscale on an 11th Gen Core i7 machine. That isn't necessarily the fault of the program, as it has to go through all the frames of a clip and upscale each individually.

Overall, we found the FSRCNN algorithm with x2 upscale factor to be the most efficient out of the bunch. EDSR, the slowest among them, takes considerably more time to operate, and the returns over the FSRCNN are rather inconsequential.

NiceScaler is a good utility to try if you're looking to upscale your photos and videos: the software is more than capable for the task, all while being very easy to use.