ENHANCE YOUR PHOTOS AND VIDEOS WITH AI

Nik Rawlinson explores the tools that use artificial intelligence to transform your images and video footage

- Nik Rawlinson

We all know that AI has an uncanny ability to generate text, graphics and videos from scratch.

But it can also work wonders with your existing photo and video content, applying complicated adjustments and edits that would be tricky and time-consuming to accomplish by hand, and producing professional-quality results – most of the time, at least.

Since AI operations demand a lot of computing power, the best services for working with images and videos almost always cost money – but depending on your requirements there are often cheap and free options available. Here's a rundown of what you can do, along with our favourite tools for such jobs, whether you're working with stills or moving images.

Upscale low-resolution photos and video

Low-resolution images are a pain. They look cheap on the screen, and even worse when you try to print them out. AI engines can do a highly effective job of upscaling pictures – especially portraits – by filling in missing detail, based on what they've learnt from looking at millions of other similar images.

If you just want to upscale one or two images you can do it for free using ChatGPT (see the box on p45). For more control, or to batch-process a large number of images, you'll want a specialised AI service.

Remini (remini.ai) is one that's designed specifically to enhance the detail and sharpness of low-resolution images. Its default settings double the resolution of your image in each direction, up to a maximum of 4,096 x 4,096 pixels – big enough to print an A3 poster at around 250 DPI.