Upscaler Settings That Keep Faces: Magnific, Topaz Gigapixel, Krea, Leonardo, Upscayl
Every generative upscaler has the same two dials under different names: how much the AI may invent, and how closely it must follow your photo. Setting them for faces works, at a price: the dial that protects the face also takes the added sharpness away from the rest of the picture. This page lists the dials in five popular tools, from the makers’ own documentation, and says what each safe setting costs you.
By Rubber Raccoon, the studio behind Unmush · Updated 13 October 2026
The settings at a glance
| Tool | "Invent less" | "Follow my photo" | What you give up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Magnific | Creativity, lower; or Precision mode | Resemblance, higher | The added detail that Creative mode exists for |
| Topaz Gigapixel | Creativity level of the Redefine model, 1 or 2 | A low Texture value | The help that higher levels give with very blurry pictures |
| Krea Enhancer | Strength, lower | Resemblance, higher | Sharpness: higher Strength is what makes the result crisper |
| Leonardo Universal Upscaler | Creativity Strength, lower | Similarity, higher | Added detail, which rises with Creativity Strength |
| Upscayl | No such dials: it enlarges without a prompt or a creativity setting | Nothing to trade, but small faces can come out smeared | |
The price of the safe setting
These main dials act on the whole picture. Turn invention down far enough to keep a small face and you also turn down the crisp hair, fabric and background that made you choose a generative upscaler in the first place. With a large face in a portrait the price is small. With the small faces of a group photo it is high, and below a certain size no setting keeps the person: there is too little in the original for the upscaler to follow.
So there are two honest choices. Accept a softer, faithful upscale. Or keep the bold upscale and repair only the faces afterwards, which is what Unmush does: it takes your original and the upscaled file and rebuilds the faces from the real ones. The second way is described in How to fix a face an AI upscaler changed.
Magnific
Magnific’s documentation describes two modes: Creative, for AI-enhanced detail, and Precision, for faithful scaling of photos, products and print. In Creative mode three sliders run from -10 to +10. Creativity is how much the AI can reimagine details: negative values stay close to the source, positive values add new detail. Resemblance is how closely the output matches the original. HDR raises the contrast of detail.
For people: use Precision, or keep Creativity at zero or below and raise Resemblance. Then compare with your original before you download.
What it costs: the newly drawn texture is the point of Creative mode. At the settings that keep a face, you get less of it everywhere.
Topaz Gigapixel
Gigapixel’s generative model is called Redefine. Its release notes describe the Creativity setting as the creative power of the model and say: set it to 1 in most scenarios with photos, or 2 for extra power. Levels of 3 or higher begin to produce divergent results and are only recommended for AI-generated images. For photographs the notes also suggest keeping Texture at 3 or less.
Gigapixel also has Face Recovery. The version 8.0 notes say it can be paired with Redefine at Creativity 1 or 2, and that it does not work as well at high creativity because the output diverges from the original. This has changed between versions, so check the notes for the version you have.
What it costs: the same notes say that levels 3 or 4 can help make up missing information in blurrier, more difficult pictures. Staying at 1 or 2 means doing without that help exactly where a small, soft face would need it.
Krea Enhancer
Krea’s documentation is the most direct: the Enhancer "is a creative tool, not a forensic one". Strength controls how much additional detail the AI invents. Resemblance keeps the output closer to the original image at higher values. Match color makes the colours follow the source. Some of the models offered inside the Enhancer have a face detection option with its own Face Creativity and Face Strength settings.
For people: low Strength, high Resemblance, and keep any face creativity setting low.
What it costs: the documentation says higher Strength produces sharper results with more AI interpretation. Lower Strength is the reverse: closer to your photo, and less sharp.
Leonardo Universal Upscaler
Leonardo’s documentation names Creativity Strength, which determines how much creative deviation occurs when detail is added, and Similarity, which determines how far the overall structure keeps to or diverges from the original. It suggests starting both at 5.
For people: go lower on Creativity Strength and higher on Similarity, then compare.
What it costs: less Creativity Strength means less added detail across the picture.
Upscayl
Upscayl is a free, open-source desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux that enlarges with Real-ESRGAN models. It takes no prompt and has no creativity dial, so it does not swap one person for another. In our own tests with enlargers of this kind, very small faces came out smoothed into a waxy surface instead. Check the smallest faces at full size. There is no setting to trade here: a smeared face has to be repaired afterwards.
Which choice for which picture
| Your picture | What usually works |
|---|---|
| A portrait, the face fills much of the frame | The safe settings. You lose little. |
| People at medium size, and you want the crisp, detailed look | The bold upscale, then repair the faces. |
| A group with many small faces | Repair afterwards. Settings alone rarely keep everyone. See upscaling group photos. |
Unmush repairs the faces after any upscaler. You give it your original photo and the upscaled file. It rebuilds each damaged face from the real face in your original, checks the result against it, and leaves faces alone that the upscaler got right. As with any AI repair, a perfect likeness cannot be guaranteed, so every face has its own rerun and can be kept as it was.
One credit repairs a photo with up to 4 faces. A new account starts with 3 free credits.
Product names belong to their owners. We are not affiliated with any of the tools named here. Settings change with new versions; the links below show what we read and when.
Sources
- Magnific, Image Upscaler documentation, read on 13 October 2026
- Topaz Labs, Gigapixel v8.0.0 release notes, read on 13 October 2026
- Krea, Enhancer documentation, read on 13 October 2026
- Leonardo.Ai, Universal Upscaler documentation, read on 13 October 2026
- Upscayl, project page, read on 13 October 2026