High res. fix vs tiled upscale

High-resolution fix and tiled upscale are both super-resolution workflows used to enhance images. However, they have different pros and cons.

In the case of high-resolution fix, it aims to fix the image but tends to smooth out the details. While this approach may work well for anime images, it may not be suitable for realistic photographs where preserving fine details is crucial.

On the other hand, tiled upscale focuses on preserving more details and slightly fixing artifacts. However, if the original image is of very low quality, tiled upscale may not be powerful enough to completely eliminate all artifacts, unlike high-resolution fix.

Let's go to some examples:

Obviously, high res. fix makes the skin smooth because of smoothing out details. Tiled upscale preserve more detail.

Here is an example of anime image:

But sometimes, we may prioritize fixing over preserving details.

As you can see, the face in original image is too bad. High res fix does better job on fixing the face. Tiled upscale can slightly fix it while preserving most detail of the sweater. In this case, we can directly go for high res. fix only or tiled upscale then face detailer

Both High res. fix and tiled upscale support 4X. The difference is much more obvious. Look at the skin, hair and sweater.

Sometimes you may see the edge of tile in 4X tiled upscale image like this:

We can easily fix the face using face detailer in this case.