Line art and flat colour need a different touch than photos. Real-ESRGAN keeps lines crisp and fills flat.
Anime and illustration upscaling has its own challenges: thin linework that must stay sharp, flat colour areas that should not get fake texture, and gradients that should stay smooth.
Real-ESRGAN handles drawn content well, producing clean lines without the halos of traditional sharpening — a solid alternative to waifu2x.
Upload the art: Use the largest version available; avoid recompressed social media copies.
Upscale to 4K: Great for desktop and phone wallpapers.
Use it: Wallpapers, prints, stickers or reference sheets.
Crisp line art: No ringing or halos around outlines.
Clean flat colours: Fills stay flat instead of gaining noise.
Wallpaper sizes: 4K output fits modern screens.
Is this like waifu2x? It serves the same purpose. Real-ESRGAN is a newer architecture and handles mixed photo/art content too.
Can I upscale screenshots from anime episodes? Yes. Be mindful that the artwork is copyrighted; personal wallpapers are fine, selling prints is not.
Will it fix JPEG artifacts? It reduces them. For heavy artifacts, run the Image Denoiser first.
Is it free to try? Yes. Signed-in accounts get 10 free credits every day, and new users can try Pro free for 7 days — cancel anytime. No watermark on any plan.