The Ultimate Gigapixel AI Tutorial (2019)

The Ultimate AI Gigapixel Tutorial (2020)

Last updated: 01-01-2020 | Tutorial for Gigapixel AI version 4.4.0+

People have been asking me to share more about Gigapixel, the AI-powered program that I use for my AI-powered upscaling projects, such as FF7 Remako Mod and DS9 Enhanced. While I have written a tutorial on how to upscale video using AI Gigapixel, I felt there is a need for a more general use tutorial.

Since there are not many tutorials for Gigapixel, I have decided to make the ultimate tutorial. I will be reviewing the program’s features, its various settings and options, best practices and more.

If you are looking to purchase AI Gigapixel, I also have 15% discount code that you can use. So keep on reading if you are interested in that.

Index

• What is AI Gigapixel?
• Compatibility and requirements
• Getting started with AI Gigapixel
• Options menu
• Processing settings
• Output settings
• File format settings
• Upscaling an image
• What can you use AI Gigapixel for?
• Tips & tricks
• Discount code

What is AI Gigapixel?

Gigapixel AI, or AI Gigapixel, is a program made by the company Topaz Labs. They make all sorts of image enhancement and improvement software, with Gigapixel probably being the most impressive of the bunch.

Gigapixel AI uses machine learning to upscale low-resolution images to high-resolution images. Unlike Photoshop it does not just blow up the image giving a blurry looking end result. Instead, the program sharpens the image and fills in new details, making it look like a high-resolution image. It does this by using a neural network.

Graphical representation of an AI neural network

A neural network analyzes thousands of photo pairs (high and low resolution) to "learn" how the details in photos usually get lost. This information is then fed into an algorithm, allowing it to “fill in” information in new photos based on what it has learned. This effectively adds new detail to an image.

Compatibility and requirements

Gigapixel AI only supports Windows (7, 8, 10 64-bit support only) and Mac (macOS 10.12, 10.13, 10.14). If you are using Linux, I suggest you use an alternative like ESRGAN.

The program requirements are quite high when it comes to memory (system RAM) and your graphics card (GPU RAM).

	Minimum	Recommended	Optimal
System RAM	8 GB	16 GB	32 GB
GPU RAM	2 GB	4 GB	6 GB+

Getting started with AI Gigapixel

There is a free 30-day trial available for Gigapixel AI, which you can get here. After the trial has ended it normally costs $99.99 for a lifetime license. If you want a 15% discount, be sure to check out the discount code at the bottom of this blog.

Once you have the program downloaded and installed, start it up. You will be greeted by the following screen:

Click to view at full size

To start upscaling an image, click the Open button or drag-and-drop one or multiple images into the window. The image(s) will load and it will look something like this:

Click to view at full size

How many images you can load into the program in one go depends on your PC's specs. It can be thousands, tens of thousands, etc. You will just have to find out for yourself.

With the Preview button, you can toggle a preview window. This preview is useful for helping you finetune the upscaling settings. Do take into account that the preview uses a lower quality upscale than the actual upscaling does, so the preview can look a bit worse than the end result.

You can use the Clear All button to remove the images from the queue. You can also remove individual images from the queue by clicking the X next to the image.

Now that you know how to add images and remove to the upscaling queue, I will tell you about the options menu first.

Options menu

Before we start, you will want to make sure you have all of the program's options set up as you want them.

To open the options menu, click on File>Preferences at the top of the window. Now, what do all these settings mean?

Allow anonymous data collection

When set to yes, computer configuration, application performance, and anonymous usage data will be collected and sent to Topaz Labs. The data helps them to improve their software by understanding how it is used. Personal data such as image files or file names are never collected or sent.
What you do with this setting is up to you personally.

Show product tour on startup

This is on the first time you will start up Gigapixel. It gives you a quick explanation about the program, every time you start the program. You will probably turn this mini-tutorial off when you have gotten used to the program.

Open preview panel when first image is loaded

When you load images into the program, a preview panel will pop-up automatically. This shows you how the upscale will look with the current settings. A helpful option, that you will probably want to leave on.

Process images as a background task

I honestly cannot figure out what this does. It is set to Yes by default, so just keep it on.

Use maximum quality AI models

Select Yes for the best possible results. Using this mode will take more time to process each image. If you would prefer faster processing with a slight reduction in quality, select No.

You will most likely always want this set to Yes. Either you want to test how good something will look when testing settings or you will want to have the best quality possible for use in your project.

The following three settings under Advanced are determined by Gigapixel on startup, so you probably do not need to change them.

Processing mode

If your computer has a dedicated graphics card (almost always the case), select GPU for fastest results. If your computer does not have a dedicated graphics card or your graphics card is not supported, select CPU instead. CPU mode will take more time process each image.

If your computer does not have a dedicated graphics card, it is probably not up to the task of upscaling anyway.

Allowed graphics memory consumption

This setting determines how much graphics memory is used. This is by default set to Medium, although you can try out High and see if you get a speed boost.

If your system experiences crashes while processing, try sticking to the Medium or Low setting to reduce graphics memory consumption. Close other programs that consume graphics memory such as video games or other photo editing programs as well.

Intel optimization

If you choose “Yes”, it will optimize 6th-10th generation Intel CPUs and Intel iGPUs for Gigapixel. If you still have very high-performance desktop GPUs (e.g., NVIDIA 1080), “Enable dedicated GPU” (Yes) option will be the best choice. However, if you have a relatively better Intel CPUs or Intel iGPUs than low-performance GPU, you will see faster performance on Intel optimization (Yes) option.

Now that we have everything set up right, we will move onto the various upscaling settings. Close the options menu and take a look at the right side of the screen.

Processing settings

Upscale by Scale

You can select from a set of predetermined scales (0.5x, 2x, 4x, and 6x) or you can put in a custom scale between 0.2x and 6x. Upscaling an image, then upscaling it again to get an upscale factor above 6x does not really work. There are diminishing returns and you lose a lot of detail.

Upscale by Width/Height

You can also scale by width or height and there is a drop-down menu that gives you the options to upscale to pixels, inches, and centimeters. Upscaling to the width/height in pixels is ideal if you want to upscale video to a certain resolution (SD to 4K). Upscaling to inches/centimeters is most useful if you want to upscale something for use in print.

Settings (Manual/Auto)

You can choose between an automatic mode, or manually change the processing settings. Auto mode analyzes the image and chooses suitable Suppress Noise/Remove Blur values for you. For simple upscales this is usually sufficient, but images that need more work need some manual adjustment.

Suppress Noise

If you have an image with a lot of image noise, compression artifacts or film grain and you want this removed in the upscaled image, then use the Suppress Noise slider. Move it around until you get a satisfying result.

Below you can see the difference of Suppress Noise at 0.0 and at 1.0.

Click to view at full size

Remove Blur

The Remove Blur slider can help you sharpen an image. If there are a lot of distinct lines in the image, this can help make it sharper and less blurry. Move the slider around until you get a satisfying result.

Below you can see the difference of Remove Blur at 0.0 and at 1.0.

Click to view at full size

Face Refinement

Faces are tricky to upscale, as there are a lot more variations than lets says brick or wood. If you set this to on, it will take a little bit more time to upscale but the results are better. Face refinement is only useful in group photos, where people’s faces are but a small part of the entire image. If the image is a portrait of a person, this feature does not need to be used.

See the difference between turning Face Refinement on and off in the example below:

Click to view at full size

Output settings

Save To

Choose the folder to save the upscaled image to, by clicking the Browse button.

Output Filename

Here you can input a prefix or suffix to add to the file name of an upscaled image. A prefix is added in front of the filename, a suffix is added to the end of the filename.

File format settings

Convert File Format

You have two options, Yes and No. If the current file format is sufficient keep it set to No. If you want to export as a different file format, change it to Yes. Once you do a couple of extra options will pop up.

Convert Files To

Here you can choose the file format you can export the upscaled image as. You can choose between:

• JPG/JPEG (lossy format, small file size)
• TIF/TIFF (lossless format, large file size, supports transparency)
• PNG (lossless format, medium file size, supports transparency)

A lossy format like JPG/JPEG is best for situations where you have a lot of images, for example when upscaling the thousands of frames of a video. When you need transparency or maximum image quality, for example when for games or for print, then I suggest you use PNG.

Image Quality/Compression

Depending on the file format chose you will get several options that determine image quality/compression.

JPG/JPEG

Image Quality:

• Low
• Medium
• High
• Maximum

Unless file size is a major factor, I suggest choosing Maximum when saving as JPG/JPEG. You are upscaling to get a more detailed image, so limiting them in image quality feels like a waste.

TIF/TIFF

Compression:

• None
• LZW
• Zip

and:

• 8-bit
• 16-bit

Compression is always recommended, as there is no loss in quality. With 16-bit color depth ZIP is recommended, but with 8-bit both ZIP or LZW are good choices.

PNG

Compression:

• Fast
• Normal
• Slow

For most situations, Fast compression is the best option.

Keep Color Profile

When you choose the JPG/JPEG file format you can change the color profile of the image. Unless you specifically need another color profile, I suggest you keep it to Yes. This saves a bit of time when upscaling.

There are multiple color profile options:

• ProPhoto RGB
• sRGB
• Adobe RGB
• Apple RGB
• Wide-gamut RGB

Upscaling an image

Now that you have all of the upscale settings the way you want, you can move onto the actual upscale process. In the bottom right of the screen, you will see two buttons: Stop and Start.

Click Start to start the upscaling process. How long this takes depends on your PC and the number of images you want to upscale. Upscaling one image should only take a few seconds, but the more images you upscale the longer it will take.

If you want to stop upscaling, you can just press the Stop button. Gigapixel AI will finish upscaling the image it is currently working on but after that, it will stop.

What can you use AI Gigapixel for?

Knowing all of these features and settings is all well and good, but what can you use AI Gigapixel for? Here are some examples.

Upscaling older digital photos

Nowadays your average phone will come with dozens of megapixels, giving you incredibly high-resolution photos, but back in the 00s or early 10s, you were lucky if you had 2 megapixels. Gigapixel can be used to upscale these photos to a higher resolution, making them more enjoyable in this age of high-resolution screens and TVs.

Click to view comparison

Make posters from low-resolution images

Have a low-resolution photo from your collection that you want to turn into a physical poster? With Gigapixel you can easily do that.

Click to view comparison

Professional photography

If you are a professional photographer, you are likely to have expensive equipment that shoots at a very high resolution. Still, there are situations where Gigapixel can help out. Maybe you want to use a small section of a larger photo but this section is too low-res. With Gigapixel you can blow up its resolution, giving you a sharp and detailed end result.

Click to view comparison

Upscale video game graphics

Gigapixel works very well with video game graphics. Whether it be pre-rendered backgrounds or textures, Gigapixel can help you upscale them. Upscaling an older game’s graphics using machine learning can make a lot of difference, as shown by my mod Remako for Final Fantasy VII.

Upscaling low-resolution video

The 90s saw the rise of digital video. This gave rise to home videos and it made television shows a lot cheaper to produce, but it came at a cost. Unlike physical film, digital video cannot be scanned in at a higher resolution. Gigapixel can help with that, by upscaling each individual frame to a higher resolution. I have made a tutorial on how to extract digital video, upscale it and put it back together (with the original audio).

In the example below, you see my small project DS9 Enhanced in which I have upscaled clips from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine from SD to 4K.

Make desktop wallpapers

One final use that I have found for Gigapixel AI is using it to upscale smaller images to a resolution suitable for desktop wallpapers. I have upscaled stills from Studio Ghibli films and other animes into beautiful desktop backgrounds. Here is an example:

Click to view comparison

You can download this wallpaper here.

Tips & tricks

You now know the basics of Gigapixel AI. Before you go off and start your first project, I have a couple of tips & tricks to help make your work easier:

• Gigapixel AI is still very much in development. There can be changes in upscaling output between versions of the program. If you want consistency in your project do not update to a newer version of the software until you are done with the project.
• If you want to upscale video game graphics, I suggest you download the previous version (3.1.1) here. It's what I use for my Remako mod and gives better results for those kinds of images than 4.4.0+ versions.
• When you do a project where you are going to do a lot of images in bulk (upscaling a video or game textures), start off with a representative sample of this full project. You do not want to upscale entire film scenes and find out the setting you chose worked for the close-up, but not for the long shot. Experimenting at the start makes sure you will not have to redo large parts of your project in the end.
• Gigapixel AI is great, but it cannot do everything. Do not be afraid to do the first pass with Gigapixel AI and then do some manual touchups in another program later.

Discount code

There is a free 30-day trial available for Gigapixel AI, so you can try it out for yourself. After the trial has ended it normally costs $99.99 for a lifetime license. While I think it is worth every penny, I can imagine that price might be a bit pricey for some, especially if you are just an amateur using it for your hobbies. Luckily I have a discount code that you can use:

CAPTROBAU15

With this code, you can get a 15% discount on not just AI Gigapixel, but any of the other Topaz Labs products. This includes:

• Sharpen AI
• Denoise AI
• JPEG to RAW AI
• Adjust AI

If you are interested in all of those products and Gigapixel AI, I recommend you get the AI Bundle as this combo deal can be combined with my discount code for even more savings.

Using the code is easy. Just enter the code CAPTROBAU15 during checkout. If you use this discount code, I will get a small share of the sale. So not only will you get to pay less, but you will also get to support me. A win-win if you ask me.

If you have any comments or questions after reading this tutorial, please reply below.