Upscaling photos just got way better with Topaz Photo AI

If you've ever upscaled a low-resolution photo with text, you've probably had to accept that it would be somewhat garbled in the best scenario and completely illegible in the worst. Fortunately, Topaz Labs has decided to tackle that in their latest update to Topaz Photo AI called Preserving Text. According to Topaz Labs, Preserve Text "specializes in making small or degraded text appear sharper and more natural than existing methods." From my initial tests, those claims seem to be warranted.

While the improvements of the Preserve Text filter may not be instantly noticeable, it is especially visible when you toggle it on and off. Let me show you the example from my tutorial video to illustrate. I'm embedding the original file below, so feel free to download it and test it out for yourself. It is a 640x427 low-resolution JPEG.

After loading the image in Topaz Photo AI, Autopilot automatically upscales it by 600% per the preference that I specified in the Settings window (I cover that in the video above). In this screenshot, you see the upscaled version without any processing applied. The image is riddled with jagged edges and aliasing. The text is virtually illegible.

Next, you can see some improvements to the clarity of the text after the Enhance filter is applied as part of the upscale model. The main headline text looks better, but the subheadline still looks pretty bad.

After that, I enable the Preserve Text filter and use the brush tool to select the text area that I want to improve.

Finally, you can see that both the headline and subheadline text looks much cleaner and more legible. There aren't any odd artifacts or warbly lines. I'm also including the upscaled version with the Preserving Text filter disabled so that you can easily compare the results.

Preserving Text Filter ON

Preserving Text Filter OFF

I've tried the Preserving Text filter on numerous images with varying resolutions, and it has always resulted in much higher-quality text details (when present). I'm honestly very impressed with this latest update to Topaz Photo AI and am looking forward to seeing what new features they add down the road. You can also check out my other Topaz Labs articles and videos here to learn even more about it.