Why does nobody talk about how AI upscalers butcher skin texture?

Last month I spent $120 on Topaz's subscription to fix some old family portraits from the 90s, and honestly the skin smoothing tool made everyone look like wax figures. I get that we all want clean results, but the texture loss is way too aggressive even on the lowest setting. I tried Gigapixel, Sharpen AI, and even a free open-source model from Hugging Face, and every single one had the same issue around the eyes and cheeks. Has anyone else noticed this, or am I just too picky about keeping pores and fine lines intact?

2 comments

2 Comments

harper_gibson220d ago

I mean, maybe it's just me but I think the smoothing is kind of the point for most people, not a bug. Like, when I fix old family pics the last thing my relatives want is a close up of their pores, they just want it to look "clean" and "new" even if it's fake.

nora_baker20d ago

Honestly my old hot takes were the opposite, but after testing on my grandma’s photos yeah, that pore melting is wild.