The Complete AI Upscaling Handbook: All in ComfyUI
Benchmarks, 10 Use Cases and 20 workflows of every modern AI upscaling model.
Upscaling is the second most-requested utility feature after asset generation in our previous surveys, and ComfyUI has been integrating a broad range of upscaling models through local integration, partner nodes, and custom nodes.
Today, we are confident that creators can access nearly all major upscaling approaches within a single workflow environment—without switching tools or breaking pipelines.
This article shares what is available in ComfyUI today and a deep dive into how to choose the best workflow for your use case.
Why Upscaling Matters
Industry requirements for resolutions: 4K/ 8K end results are widely required across VFX & Film, Marketing, E-commerce, Gaming, and Design industries, and requirements keep moving up.
Reframing: When assets ship across different aspect ratios and placements, extra resolution headroom prevents quality loss after cropping or recomposition.
The AI content problem: Generative AI has dramatically increased the speed of visual creation, but most AI asset today is still generated at 480–720p, and not production-ready at the pixel level: edges, micro-texture, faces/hands, compression artifacts, etc. This creates a new pipeline: Generation → Refinement / Fix → Upscale → Delivery
It’s a cost/time hack: generate or render smaller → upscale at the end. This is a standard efficiency move in pipelines under budget/time pressure.
Key Concepts
Upscaling vs. Enhancement
Upscaling → increases resolution while reconstructing detail
Enhancement → improves perceived quality (denoise, sharpen, restore, color, faces, etc.)
The best practice in AI pipelines usually combines both steps.
Creative Upscale vs. Conservative Upscale
Diffusion models and generative AI changed what “upscaling” means. Traditionally, super-resolution aimed to preserve the original signal, which you can also easily achieve in ComfyUI. This article does not focus on this. Today, some models can re-imagine details that never existed. And there are models approaching different balances between the two.
┌─────────────────────────────────────-─────────────────────────┐
│ CONSERVATIVE CREATIVE │
│ Preserve the original Reimagine and enhance │
│ │
│ Strengths: Strengths: │
│ High accuracy, Consistency Rich details, Sharper │
│ Production-safe More visually striking │
│ │
│ Limits: Limits: │
│ Can appear flat, limited Possible hallucinations │
│ improvement on poor input or structural drift │
│ │
│ Models: Models: │
│ Magnific Precise, SeedVR2, Wan 2.2, Magnific │
│ FlashVSR, Topaz Fast, HitPaw Creative, Topaz Astra │
│ Creative, HitPaw │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────-─┘Image Upscale
TLDR - Magnific skin enhancer for portraits. Magnific Precise, WaveSpeed SeedVR2 or Nano Banana Pro for product photography. The upscale model depends on your needs for landscapes and illustrations. Do not rely on upscaling to fix common AI artifacts. For SeedVR2, downscaling the image to 0.35 megapixels with the ImageScaleToTotalPixels node and then upscaling gets you better results.
Use Case 1: Portrait / Skin Enhancement
When it comes to upscaling portraits of realistic subjects, achieving realistic skin details while maintaining character consistency is key. The best upscale models for fixing plastic skin need to add texture, pores and natural skin imperfections. In this domain, there is one model that far outperforms the rest - Magnific Image Skin Enhancer. The results below speak for themselves.
Use Case 2: Product Photography
Maintaining a faithful representation of materials, product label edges, and small text is a must when upscaling product images. Therefore, conservative upscaling models are necessary.
We recommend testing with HitPaw, Magnific Precise, WaveSpeed SeedVR2 and Nano Banana Pro.
Use Case 3: Landscape / Environments
For this use case, the upscale model you select really depends on your needs. Have an environmental shot that you want to pop with details and set a mood? Use a creative upscale model. Have an establishing shot where a building needs to stay consistent? Use a conservative upscale model. With this in mind, any model can potentially fit your needs.
It’s worth noting that if your input image has artifacts, creative upscale models may be able to reimagine the artifact while conservative upscale models will not.
Use Case 4: Stylized Art / Illustration
This is another use case where the correct upscale model depends on your needs. A rule of thumb is that if your input has a very distinct/unique style, the best model will be conservative. Creative models may add too many details and stray away from the desired illustrated style. However, if your input image has room for detail, a creative model works well and can even improve the style.
We recommend playing around with the ‘creativity’ parameters for Magnific Creative and Topaz Image Enhance to find values that meet your needs! Nano Banana Pro can also work well for more common styles and adding details (but may rely on ‘seed luck’).
Use Case 5: AI Images
When it comes to upscaling images that have typical AI issues such as too many fingers, artifacts, incorrect anatomy, and morphing, the assumption is that creative upscales can fix it. Sometimes that’s true, but other times not so much. Best practice is to resolve these issues prior to upscaling with image-edit models or traditional tools (or generate a new image entirely).
Upscale Generation Time Comparison from 1K —> 4K
Nano Banana Pro ~80s
Topaz Image Enhance ~100s
Magnific Creative ~50s
Magnific Skin Enhancer ~60s
Magnific Precise ~40s
HitPaw ~60s
WaveSpeed SeedVR2 ~40s
Video Upscale
TL;DR: SeedVR2 and HitPaw deliver the most accurate and consistent realism, and Topaz Astra Creative is strongest for cinematic polish and fixing AI-generated video. Both FlashVSR and HitPaw are good for speed.
Use Case 6: Video Upscale (Quality Mode)
SeedVR2 and HitPaw deliver the most accurate results, with strong image quality and excellent character consistency.
Topaz also upscales effectively, but it can sometimes be more creative than expected. This makes it especially suitable for cinematic footage where a stylized look is acceptable.
Use Case 7: Video Upscale (Speed Mode)
FlashVSR performs extremely well when speed is the priority. Upscaling from 720p to 1080p takes about 41 seconds for a 10-second video, making it one of the fastest options available.
HitPaw is also relatively fast. In Topaz, the Fast and Creative modes render at similar speeds, so using Creative mode is generally recommended for better visual results without sacrificing time.
Use Case 8: AI Video Fix
Topaz Astra Creative produces very smooth and visually consistent outputs, making it a strong choice for repairing AI-generated videos.
A useful workflow tip is to first run a fix or cleanup pass, then upscale to 1080p, and finally upscale gradually to 4K. This step-by-step approach usually leads to better stability and detail.
Use Case 9: Archival Restoration
SeedVR2 is particularly impressive for archival restoration. It preserves the original structure and detail of the source footage while enhancing clarity, avoiding the introduction of artificial or exaggerated features.
Use Case 10: CGI / 3D Render
Topaz, SeedVR2 and HitPaw all perform very well on CGI and 3D-rendered footage. They produce clean, sharp results and maintain the crisp edges that are important for synthetic imagery.
Upscale Speed for 10S 720P Clips
FlashVSR (local) 1080p ~41s
FlashVSR (local) 4K ~52s
SeedVR2 (local) 1080p on 5090 ~312s
Wan2.2 Upscale (local)
Topaz Astra 1080p ~374s
Topaz Astra 4K ~560s
HitPaw 2K ~80s
HitPaw 4K ~175s
Workflows in ComfyUI
All the models and workflows mentioned in the article are ready to use on Comfy Cloud. You can also download the workflows and try to set them up locally.
Image Upscale
Topaz Image Enhance: Creative; Landscape; Illustration
Magnific: Skin Enhancer
HitPaw: Creative & Creative Portrait
Nano Banana Pro: Portrait, Product, Styled Art
Video Upscale
Fast GAN (Open Source): Traditional
SeedVR2 (Open Source): Conservative
SeedVR2 (WaveSpeed API): Conservative
FlashVSR (WaveSpeedAPI): Conservative
Wan2.2 Upscale (Open Source): Creative
Topaz Astra: Creative
HitPaw: All-in-one
As always, enjoy creating!
I find Topaz is poor for illustration, smooths off the character of any natural media style. I find a tiled upscale with appropriate loras will do a better job for very high res.