Windows Photos app introduces Image upscaling, with a twist

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

It might be useful for AI upscaling an image if you’re going to turn an otherwise normal coarse image into one that looks good on high-definition displays. Today, you’ll get upscaling integrated with Windows 11 directly with an update on the Microsoft Photos app.

Microsoft has started to roll out testing of a new version of their Photos app for Windows 11 that brings a multitude of AI features and improvements in efficiency. Super-resolution is being added to Windows Insiders; Copilot+ PCs, including OCR support, are also available.

The biggest feature of this update is introducing super-resolution for Copilot+ PCs. Utilising the device’s Neural Processing Unit (NPU), this AI-boosted mode can improve and enrich an image, improving the resolution of an image by up to 800%. This permits users to enhance over-exposed images, glamour shots for enlarging to big billboards, or close to subject without losing detail.

It works a lot like those web-based AI upscalers you’ve probably used online, with the key difference being that they are processed locally on your computer. The application of super-resolution is an option and it can be initiated on the Photos Editor interface. Unfortunately, it is not for non-Copilot+ PCs because the feature takes advantage of the laptop’s onboard NPU to speed up calculations; therefore, those with standard PCs will have to stick with those famous online tools.

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Microsoft has furthermore included OCR into the Photos app. This feature facilitates simple extraction of text from images including, documents, notes or even screenshots. The OCR engine assists over 160 languages and is intended to be accessed using a button that appears on the image viewer when text is discovered. From there you can be able to click on text and copy then paste the text in other applications.

In addition to the two major additions, the update adds several usability improvements. Navigation has been made easier by the addition of single-click support to Gallery, and the Zoom feature has also been enhanced by auto-resizing images as well as synchronizing the zoom slider and actual picture. Moreover, the Image creator and Restyle image functional bugs for Copilot+ PCs have been addressed to improve the quality in general.

It is now being released for Insiders. Everyone else, who uses Windows 11 as their daily driver, will have to wait for this update to arrive to them unless they want to toy with beta-grade software and find themselves introducing new problems to their system along with the fix.