# AI Image Upscaler (2x, 3x, 4x, Real-ESRGAN) (`psypherz/image-upscaler`) Actor

Upscale photos, product shots and artwork 2x, 3x or 4x with Real-ESRGAN AI. Sharper detail, less blur and JPEG noise. Bulk image links or upload. PNG, JPG or WebP output. Pay per image.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/psypherz/image-upscaler.md
- **Developed by:** [Muhammad Yasin Bin Abdul Rahman](https://apify.com/psypherz) (community)
- **Categories:** AI, For creators
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $15.00 / 1,000 image upscaleds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## AI Image Upscaler (2x, 3x, 4x, Real-ESRGAN)

Make small or blurry images 2, 3 or 4 times larger with sharper detail. Product photos, old photos, thumbnails, artwork and AI images all work. It uses Real-ESRGAN, an open-source AI upscaler that removes blur and JPEG noise while it enlarges. Paste image links or upload an image and get download links to the upscaled files.

**Price: US$0.015 per image (input up to 1 megapixel), plus a US$0.003 run fee.** 100 images cost US$1.503.

### What people use it for

- **E-commerce:** enlarge supplier photos to meet marketplace minimum sizes (Amazon, Etsy, Shopify zoom).
- **Print:** bring web-size images up to print resolution.
- **AI images:** upscale Midjourney, DALL-E or Stable Diffusion output to 4x.
- **Old photos and thumbnails:** recover detail from small or compressed images.
- **Automation:** upscale images in bulk from a pipeline or AI agent, with JSON results.

### Example output

Real output (Wikimedia Commons cat photo, 4x, 29 Oct 2026).

| fileName | scale | inputWidth | inputHeight | outputWidth | outputHeight | outputUrl |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 250px-Cat_November_2010-1a.jpg | 4 | 250 | 334 | 1000 | 1336 | link to the PNG |

```json
{
  "sourceUrl": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Cat_November_2010-1a.jpg/250px-Cat_November_2010-1a.jpg",
  "fileName": "250px-Cat_November_2010-1a.jpg",
  "outputUrl": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/<store-id>/records/0000-250px-Cat_November_2010-1a-x4.png",
  "outputKey": "0000-250px-Cat_November_2010-1a-x4.png",
  "scale": 4,
  "inputWidth": 250,
  "inputHeight": 334,
  "outputWidth": 1000,
  "outputHeight": 1336,
  "format": "png",
  "outputBytes": 1643070,
  "processedAt": "2026-10-29T05:01:40+00:00"
}
```

The upscaled files are saved in the run's key-value store. `outputUrl` downloads each one. Transparent PNG and WebP images keep their transparency.

### Input

| Field | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| `imageUrls` | Direct links to images, up to 500. JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP, TIFF. 30 MB and 6.25 megapixels per image. | 1 sample image |
| `uploadedFile` | Or upload one image from your computer. | none |
| `scale` | `2`, `3` or `4` times larger on each side. | `4` |
| `outputFormat` | `png` (lossless), `jpg` (smaller files) or `webp` (smallest). | `png` |

Results are capped at 25 megapixels (for example 5000 x 5000). If the scale you pick would go over that, the image gets the largest scale that fits, and the row says so.

### Pricing

| Event | Price |
|---|---|
| Run fee, once per run (per 4 GB of memory; the default is 4 GB) | US$0.003 |
| Image upscaled (input up to 1 megapixel, for example 1000 x 1000) | US$0.015 |
| Each started megapixel of input above the first | US$0.015 |

Examples: one 500 x 500 image costs US$0.018. 100 images of up to 1 MP cost US$1.503. One 2000 x 1500 image (3 MP) costs US$0.048. The price depends on the input size only, so 2x, 3x and 4x cost the same. Images that fail to download or open are listed with the reason and not charged.

### Limits

- Real-ESRGAN sharpens and cleans. It cannot invent detail that was never in the photo, so very tiny faces and text stay soft.
- It runs on CPU. Expect about 30 to 45 seconds per megapixel of input at the default memory. Raise the run's memory for more CPU cores and faster runs.
- Free Apify plan: up to 3 images per run.

### FAQ

**Which model is it?** Real-ESRGAN general x4v3 (BSD-3-Clause licence), the general-purpose model for photos and artwork.

**Can an AI agent call it?** Yes. Pass image links, get JSON with download links back, and pay per image.

**Are my images kept?** Results stay in your own Apify storage, under your account's data retention settings. Nothing is shared with third parties.

### More tools from the same developer

Same style: clean JSON output, pay only for results, no charge on failed items.

| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| [Bulk Keyword Search Volume](https://apify.com/PsypherZ/keyword-search-volume) | Google Ads search volume, CPC, competition and 12-month trend for up to 10,000 keywords |
| [Google Keyword Ideas](https://apify.com/PsypherZ/google-keyword-ideas) | Hundreds of keyword ideas per seed with volume, CPC, difficulty and search intent |
| [Amazon Keyword Search Volume](https://apify.com/PsypherZ/amazon-keyword-volume) | Monthly Amazon searches for up to 10,000 keywords in 16 markets, plus related keywords |
| [Competitor Keywords](https://apify.com/PsypherZ/competitor-keywords) | Every Google keyword a domain ranks for, with traffic, plus its closest competitors |
| [Google Trends API](https://apify.com/PsypherZ/google-trends-api) | Interest over time, by region, and rising queries and topics for up to 500 keywords |
| [Google SERP Results](https://apify.com/PsypherZ/google-serp-results) | Organic results, featured snippets and People Also Ask for any keyword, country and device |
| [AI Brand Visibility Tracker](https://apify.com/PsypherZ/ai-brand-visibility) | Which brands ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity recommend, and where yours ranks |
| [Google AI Overview Tracker](https://apify.com/PsypherZ/google-ai-overview-tracker) | Which keywords show an AI Overview, what it says, and whether it cites your site |
| [Audio and Video Transcriber](https://apify.com/PsypherZ/audio-video-transcriber) | Timestamped transcripts from audio and video files in 90+ languages |
| [Subtitle Generator](https://apify.com/PsypherZ/subtitle-generator) | Ready-to-use SRT and WebVTT subtitles from audio and video files |
| [Podcast Transcriber](https://apify.com/PsypherZ/podcast-transcriber) | Timestamped transcripts of podcast episodes from any RSS feed or Apple Podcasts link |
| [Image OCR](https://apify.com/PsypherZ/image-ocr) | Text from images in 20 languages, with confidence scores |
| [PDF to Text and Markdown](https://apify.com/PsypherZ/pdf-to-text-markdown) | Clean text and Markdown from PDFs, with OCR for scanned pages |
| [Bulk PageSpeed Insights Audit](https://apify.com/PsypherZ/bulk-pagespeed-audit) | Core Web Vitals and Lighthouse scores for many pages, mobile and desktop |

# Actor input Schema

## `imageUrls` (type: `array`):

Direct links to images. Up to 500 per run, 30 MB and 6.25 megapixels each.

## `uploadedFile` (type: `string`):

Upload one image from your computer.

## `scale` (type: `string`):

How much larger the result is on each side. Results are capped at 25 megapixels; a bigger image gets the largest factor that fits.

## `outputFormat` (type: `string`):

File format of the upscaled images.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "imageUrls": [
    "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Cat_November_2010-1a.jpg/250px-Cat_November_2010-1a.jpg"
  ],
  "scale": "4",
  "outputFormat": "png"
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

One row per image: link to the upscaled file, scale and sizes.

## `files` (type: `string`):

All upscaled image files in the run's key-value store.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "imageUrls": [
        "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Cat_November_2010-1a.jpg/250px-Cat_November_2010-1a.jpg"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("psypherz/image-upscaler").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "imageUrls": ["https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Cat_November_2010-1a.jpg/250px-Cat_November_2010-1a.jpg"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("psypherz/image-upscaler").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "imageUrls": [
    "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Cat_November_2010-1a.jpg/250px-Cat_November_2010-1a.jpg"
  ]
}' |
apify call psypherz/image-upscaler --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,psypherz/image-upscaler"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/srOkp8Q1ofbEkHBPH/builds/Abu8ySi3XLbD1ZTcy/openapi.json