Top 5 Open-Source Image Super-Resolution Projects to Boost Your Generative AI Tasks (2024 Version)

In this article, you will discover the top and free open-source Image Super-Resolution and openai for Image Processing projects with more than 8K stars on GitHub.

Mrinal Walia
6 min readJan 6, 2024

With the introduction of technologies like Dall-e and ChatGPT, image super-resolution has become a critical tool for enhancing visual data.

The 2024 version of “Top 5 Open-Source Image Super-Resolution Projects to Boost Your Generative AI Tasks” presents innovative computer vision projects transforming the image processing landscape.

These open-source projects use advanced techniques to improve image quality, restore degraded images, and upscale media content. They’re perfect for developers and researchers looking to integrate super-resolution into their AI tasks.

Note: This article showcases different projects and their unique features and applications. Click the link for more information on each project.

Image generated by Dall-e and prompt written by Mrinal Walia

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List of Top 5 Projects ⬇️

1. GFPGAN (TencentARC/GFPGAN) — 33.3K stars & 5.5K forks | GitHub

Purpose: Specializes in real-world face restoration using Generative Adversarial Networks.

Key Features:

  • High-fidelity face restoration.
  • Blinds face restoration method.
  • Useful for restoring old photos and improving low-resolution facial images.

Applications: Enhancing face details in old movies, restoring historical photographs, etc.

Link to Official Research Paper:

2. Real-ESRGAN (xinntao/Real-ESRGAN) — 24.5K stars & 3.1K forks | GitHub

Purpose: Provides algorithms for general image/video restoration.

Key Features:

  • High-quality image enhancement.
  • Capable of handling more diverse and challenging real-world scenarios.
  • Supports different models for various restoration tasks.

Applications: Enhancing details in images and videos, restoring old media, etc.

Link to Official Research Paper:

Paper (Real-ESRGAN: Training Real-World Blind Super-Resolution with Pure Synthetic Data)

3. CodeFormer (sczhou/CodeFormer) — 11.6K stars & 2.5K forks | GitHub

Purpose: Focuses on robust blind face restoration.

Key Features:

  • Combines deep learning with traditional facial priors.
  • Delivers high-quality face restoration.
  • Adapts to different degrees of degradation.

Applications: Restoring facial features in degraded images, enhancing portrait photos, etc.

Link to Official Research Paper:

4. Waifu2x-Extension-GUI (AaronFeng753/Waifu2x-Extension-GUI) — 11.3K stars & 830 forks | GitHub

Purpose: Upscales and interpolates videos, images, and GIFs.

Key Features:

  • Supports various algorithms like Waifu2x, Real-ESRGAN, and Anime4K.
  • Offers both GUI and command-line interfaces.
  • Capable of video frame interpolation.

Applications: Upscaling animations and artwork, video quality enhancement, etc.
Results:

💾 Download Latest Stable Build (Windows x64)

5. Video2X (k4yt3x/video2x) —8.1K stars & 862 forks | GitHub

Purpose: A lossless video/GIF/image upscaler.

Key Features:

  • Integrates multiple upscaling algorithms.
  • Can upscale videos, GIFs, and images without quality loss.
  • Features a user-friendly interface and is open for community contributions.

Applications: Enhancing the quality of videos and images, particularly in animation.

Results:

1. GIF Upscaling

Catfru scaled up to 4x its original size using waifu2x (original image)

2. Video Upscaling

Upscale demo: Spirited Away’s movie trailer

Spirited Away: YouTube | Bilibili

  • 360P to 4K
  • The original video’s copyright belongs to 株式会社スタジオジブリ

3. Image Upscaling

Image 8x upscaling demo (original image by nananicu)

Summary

This article highlights five notable projects: GFPGAN, Real-ESRGAN, CodeFormer, Waifu2x-Extension-GUI, and Video2X. The open-source nature of projects discussed today makes them accessible for integration into various AI-related tasks. Hope you found some cool projects out there!

HAPPY LEARNING!

One Last Thing! I want to thank you for reading so far, and as a surprise, I have a BONUS project for you guys.

Awesome-Super-Resolution-This is a collection of academic studies and practical applications related to image super-resolution using deep learning. It covers the period from 2014 to 2024 and can serve as a valuable resource for anyone interested in the latest developments in this field. For more details, visit Awesome-Super-Resolution on GitHub.

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Mrinal Walia