Which operations work best for different types of photos?

Need tips on using the right algorithm for your photos?

In order to produce a high quality image, it's important to make sure it hasn't been previously upscaled with any tool.

If your image has already been upscaled or scanned from the physical original, sometimes reducing the resolution before processing can yield much better results.

The core basics about Let's Enhance algorithms

Let's Enhance algorithms help improve your photos in many ways: apply JPEG noise reduction (removing pixelation in your compressed images), bring out shapes, make your images crisp and sharp, fill in missing details, you name it. However, to get the best results, it is worth knowing which operations to choose for relevant photo types: taken by phone, digital camera, small compressed & pixelated, for printing, photos of people, architecture, cartoons, etc.

Choose the right algorithm that is best for your use case

OPERATIONS

Within the OPERATIONS tab, you can adjust the Upscale type, Remove background, apply Light AI (HDR effect), enhance Tone and Color. These can be applied accordingly within the menu panel on the right:

1. Upscale type: Photo (Smart enhance)

Smart Enhance specializes in low quality images (compressed, blurred, pixelated, etc.). It works wonders on low-quality product images and images with faces, but this neural network cannot recognize images with bodies. It is better to use the 'Old Photo' type of upscaling.



Upscaling type Photo (Smart Enhance) works best on:

small & bad quality product photos
real estate
food for the web


💡 The use of the 'Photo (Smart enhance)' algorithm is not recommended for good and high quality images because the Enhance type is trained to aggressively restore missing details and intensively redraw them in low quality images. That's why some artifacts can be found in good/high quality images due to the over-intensive restoration.

2. Upscale type: Digital Art

Upscaling type Digital Art works best on:

drawings
illustrations
paintings
cartoons
anime

Use Digital Art for low-resolution illustrations and digital art

3. Upscale type: Image with Text

💡 The Image with Text algorithm is trained to enhance images with all types of text, such as labels on product packaging, posters, and maps

4. Upscale type: Old Photo

Upscaling type Old Photo algorithm is trained for super advanced restoration of low quality and early digital images taken by your phone and digital camera of:

people
nature
architecture


Within this upscaling type, you can apply an advanced upsampling feature Enhance face details:




💡 Together, these two algorithms do an excellent job of enhancing photos of faces, removing artifacts, redrawing missing elements, and adjusting the sharpness of each line to produce crisp, clear images. Enhance Face Details is a separate AI algorithm trained on millions of face datasets, so this neural network consistently detects missing elements and determines what needs to be adjusted.

5. Upscale type: Magic (beta)

Magic is our most powerful, next-generation AI upscaler for AI art, food and landscape photos

Magic network is still in beta phase. Read more about this upscaler here: What is the Magic next-gen AI upscaler and how to use it?



There are also other functions within the OPERATIONS tap you can adjust accordingly to your requirements:

Remove background

Use it to remove the background from your product, cars or general images. Remember to set the output file to PNG before processing to download the image with the transparent background. Otherwise it will be converted to JPEG and the background will be white.

Light AI

Use the Light AI sidebar to balance out colours and fix lightning in your images.

Tone enhance

Choose the Tone Enhance sidebar for higher dynamic range.

Color enhance

Adjust Color Enhance to increase saturation, and provide brightness adjustments




💡 Dependance - when to apply Light AI, Tone Enhance and Color Enhance

👉🏻 To prevent artificial lighting of your processed images after selecting Light AI, it is not recommended to apply Tone and Color enhancers
👉🏻 For Tone Enhance or Color Enhance, intensity levels of 15-30 will be good starting points, providing you hadn't previously applied Light AI. However, there's always a space to adjust their intensity further up to when the demanded level/satisfying outcome is achieved. Experiment!

Learn more: Tutorial #1: How to Upscale a Photo in One Minute with Let's Enhance


Up next: What are Presets and which one should I choose for my photos?

Updated on: 21/04/2024