How to Upscale Images in Photoshop Without Losing Quality

Have you ever printed a photo that looked great on the screen but turned out disappointing on paper?

Or maybe you’ve looked at a perfectly sharp picture on your phone, only to notice ragged edges and soft details when you zoom in or open it on a larger screen?

In both cases, the issue often comes down to image resolution and can be solved with the same tool: an upscaler.

Thankfully, Photoshop offers two powerful, easy-to-use upscaling tools.

They each have their strengths and weaknesses, of course, and in this guide, I’ll walk you through both so you can decide which one best fits your needs.

Keep on reading to learn how and when to use Super Zoom and Generative Upscale in Photoshop.

What Does It Mean to Upscale an Image?

Upscaling an image means increasing its size while preserving its quality and details.

A digital image is made out of tiny squares called pixels. If you enlarge an image without upscaling it, you’re just making the pixels bigger and more visible. As a result, the image loses sharpness and quality – it becomes what’s commonly known as pixelated.

So, in simple words, upscaling is enlarging the image without pixelating it.

Upscaling occurs when software creates new content rather than stretching the existing content. Photoshop has been able to do this for decades using mathematical interpolation.

However, in recent years, with the use of AI technology, upscaling has become more accurate and can achieve much larger sizes while maintaining and even improving the picture’s quality.

This is because it doesn’t just consider the neighboring pixels as it used to. Now, it reads and “understands” the entire image to generate the new content.

Nowadays, Photoshop offers two ways to upscale a picture. One of them has been around for a while and uses AI-powered machine learning to enlarge images and recover detail. It’s a neural filter called Super Zoom.

The other is the newer Generative Upscale, which takes things a step further by using generative AI to rebuild textures and produce realistic-looking results.

When Should You Upscale a Photo?

There are plenty of reasons why you’d need to upscale an image. One of the most common is wanting to print a photo larger than the original resolution allows.

It’s also needed when you want to crop a large chunk of your photo to get closer to the subject.

If you didn’t have a long enough focal length or couldn’t get physically close to the subject at the time of shooting, you might want to fix it in the editing process.

However, once you crop all those pixels around the subject, you might end up with a tiny picture – this is when upscaling can help.

Upscaling is also used to restore old photos that were scanned at low resolution or taken with an old digital camera that didn’t offer enough megapixels.

Content creators may also require an upscaler because an image that looked OK on Instagram might not look as good on a banner, online store, or a high-resolution display.

Upscaling is not just for photographs; AI-generated images are often small and may need to be upscaled for broader use.

• More: How to Choose Photo Resolution (for Printing & Online)

Method 1: How to Upscale an Image Using Photoshop Super Zoom

Now that you know what upscaling is and why you would need it, let’s see how to do it. I’ll start with Adobe Photoshop‘s Super Zoom Neural Filter.

Step 1 – Open Super Zoom

With your photo open in Photoshop, head over to the menu Filter > Neural filters.

This will open the Neural Filters panel on the right side of the screen. On the left, you’ll see your image. This layout lets you preview the filters on your photo before applying them, where applicable.

In the case of Super Zoom, you won’t see any changes. Don’t worry, the software is working.

On the Neural Filters panel, you’ll find Super Zoom under the Photography section. The first time you use it, you may need to download it – simply click on the cloud icon next to its name.

Once the filter is installed, toggle the switch to the right to enable it. This will enable all its features for you to adjust its settings on the right side.

Step 2 – Adjust the Settings

The first and crucial setting of Super Zom is the upscaling amount. Under the photo, you’ll see two magnifying glass icons: one with a plus sign and one with a minus sign.

To upscale a photo, click on the magnifying glass with the plus sign. Every time you click it, you increase its size by 1x. Therefore, if you click on it three times, it will upscale by 3x.

You can reach up to 16x, but the best results come with moderate increases.

It’s also possible to enable the ‘Enhance Image Details’ and ‘Remove JPEG Artifacts’ options. These two features are meant to improve the quality of an image if it’s too soft or it has issues caused by its compression.

Enhance Face Details is another feature possible for portrait images.

Then you’ll have two sliders to control Noise Reduction and Sharpness.  You might need to make a few trials to find the perfect balance between all the features to get the best possible result.

Remember that all the processing is done on your device, and big enlargements may take some time depending on how powerful your device is.

• More: How to Use Photoshop’s AI Background Remover

Step 3 – Choose the Output

Once the computer finishes processing, you can choose to output the upscaled image as either a new layer or a new document. The choice depends on why you were doing the upscaling in the first place.

Remember how I told you that you could upscale because you needed a bigger picture to print, for example, or because you wanted to crop it and zoom in on the subject? Well, this determines how the image is output.

The New Layer option will open the upscaled photo in the same document as the original, preserving the same canvas size. This means that you’ll have a zoomed-in version of the content, but the size will be the same – you’ll lose the information that sits outside the edges.

Instead, if you output the upscaled version to a new document, you’ll see the entire image, but it will be larger. This is the option you need if you want to print on a larger format.

Pros

• Included in your membership – no generative credits needed
• Works locally – no need for an Internet connection
• Up to 16x upscaling
• Multiple settings for further control
• Non-destructive
• Output in the same document or a new one

Cons

• It may take a longer time depending on the upscaling factor
• Less natural details reconstruction
• Extreme enlargements don’t have the highest quality
• Not ideal for very detailed images

Method 2: How to Upscale an Image Using Photoshop Generative Upscale

Moving on to the Generative Upscale method, you’ll need to have an updated version of Photoshop to use it. That means at least Photoshop 2026 (version 27.0) because it was released in October 2025.

Step 1 – Open Generative Upscale

For this method, go to Image > Generative Upscale while your photo is open inside Photoshop. Beware that if you’re not connected to WiFi, this feature appears greyed out.

Step 2 – Adjust the Settings

When you enable the Generative Upscale tool, a pop-up dialog box will appear. Here, you can choose how much you want to upscale your image. Unlike Super Zoom, the maximum is 4x.

You’ll also be able to choose the AI model you want to use – each one has different controls available.

The Firefly model is a standard feature, which means it’s available to all subscribers. You don’t have any control settings here. It’s mostly recommended to restore low-res images.

You can also opt for one of the partner models. Currently, the options are both from Topaz and are premium features, so their availability depends on the type of membership you have.

The first option is Topaz Gigapixel, which is recommended for preserving the most detail and includes a Face Recovery feature.

The second choice is Topaz Bloom, and it’s used mainly to generate new, creative details. You’ll have a Creative slider to control the balance between creativity and fidelity in the generated content.

On desktop, the Firefly model shouldn’t consume any credits, but it will if you use it in Photoshop online. The cost of this tool online ranges from 5 to 35 credits at the time of writing, but this may change, so it’s best to check the table on Adobe’s official website.

Step 3 – Save your file

Once the upscale is complete, you’ll notice that the document size has increased and that the upscaled photo is on a new layer.

The original background layer didn’t retain its starting resolution, leaving the extra canvas space empty; instead, it’s stretched to fit the new canvas size.

This allows you to toggle the top layer’s visibility on and off and see the difference between upscaling and enlarging.

However, it’s important that you use the Save As option to save this as a new file. Otherwise, your edit will overwrite the original file, and you’ll lose it forever, as the bottom layers have lost quality from the stretching.

It’s up to you whether to flatten the image before saving or keep the layers. It will also depend on the file format you need; for example, if you need to save it as a JPEG, you’ll have to merge the layers.

Pros

• More natural and realistic results
• Continuous improvements because it’s the newest technology
• Specialized partner models
• It may be faster depending on the computer specs
• It’s also available in Photoshop online

Cons

• 4x maximum upscale
• It consumes generative credits
• Some options aren’t available for regular Photoshop memberships
• It needs an Internet connection for the cloud-based processing
• Not ideal when you need full fidelity
• Destructive workflow

How to Upscale Images In Photoshop – FAQs

Is it possible to upscale an image in Photoshop?

Yes, Photoshop offers several ways to upscale an image. In this article, you’ll find a step-by-step guide to upscaling an image using either Super Zoom or Generative Upscale.

How to make a picture higher quality in Photoshop?

You can improve the picture quality by increasing the resolution, reducing noise, and sharpening details. All these things can be done with Photoshop’s upscaling tools.

How to upscale to 300 dpi in Photoshop?

To change the dpi on an image in Photoshop, go to the menu Image > Image Size. There, set the resolution to 300 dpi. You can enable resampling to enlarge the image, or better yet, don’t resample it and upscale it using Super Zoom or Generative Upscale.

Does upscaling increase image quality?

Upscaling allows you to make the image bigger without losing quality. If you use an AI upscaler, you can also improve quality by recovering missing details.

Can I convert a photo to high resolution?

Yes, Photoshop can increase a photo’s resolution using traditional resizing or AI-powered upscaling tools.

How to use generative upscale in Photoshop?

Simply open your image in Photoshop and go to Image > Generative Upscale. When it opens, set the desired increase and choose an AI model – Photoshop does the rest.