Fix it before you upscale it
Upscalers magnify problems. Hands with six fingers, warped text and melted jewellery should be fixed at the original resolution with inpainting or a re-roll. A 4× upscale of a broken hand is a very detailed broken hand.
Choosing creative strength
| Goal | Creativity | Resemblance / structure |
|---|---|---|
| Same image, just bigger and crisper | Low | High |
| Richer texture (skin, fabric, foliage) | Medium | Medium-high |
| Re-imagine the details (concept art) | High | Medium |
Slider names and scales differ between tools, so treat this as direction, not numbers. Run each setting a few times, because creative upscales vary from run to run.
Prompting an upscaler
If the tool accepts a prompt, describe materials and surfaces, not the scene: “matte ceramic, brushed aluminium, linen, wet cobblestones”. Adding style words such as “cinematic” or “masterpiece” mostly pushes contrast and saturation. Leave the prompt empty, or keep it neutral, for faces you want to keep.
Pick the output size first
- 4K wallpaper (3840 × 2160): a 1344 × 768 render needs about 2.9×; a 1024 × 1024 square needs cropping first.
- Instagram or web: 2× is plenty. Platforms downscale anything larger.
- Print: use the print size calculator. Posters viewed from a distance need fewer pixels than you’d think.
The three artefacts to check
- Texture everywhere. Skies, skin and gradients picking up grain or pattern. Lower the HDR/detail setting or mask those areas.
- Tiling seams and repeats. Grid-like lines or the same leaf repeated. Raise the overlap or lower creativity.
- New objects. Faces in foliage, extra windows, text-like squiggles. Lower creativity, or blend with a faithful pass.
A faithful-then-creative blend (described in creative vs faithful) fixes most of these. Upsampler’s page on upscaling Midjourney and Stable Diffusion art shows the same idea with examples.
FAQ
Why does my upscaled Midjourney image look “crunchy”?
Over-strong creative settings and repeated passes add high-frequency texture everywhere, including areas that should be smooth such as skin, sky and gradients. Reduce creativity or HDR, upscale in one step to the final size, and mask the smooth areas from a faithful pass.
Should I upscale inside the generator or with a separate tool?
Built-in upscalers are convenient and tuned for their own model’s output. A separate tool gives you more control: faithful vs creative, the exact output size, prompts. Try both on one image and compare them blind.
What about tiling seams?
Diffusion upscalers often process large images in overlapping tiles. Visible seams or repeated motifs mean the overlap is too small or creativity is too high. Increase the tile overlap if the tool exposes it, or lower creativity.