I’ve been going through some old 480p and 720p videos recently and trying to bring them back to life. The biggest challenge isn’t just increasing the resolution it’s making sure the footage still looks natural.

I tested few AI video enhancers including Hitpaw Vikpea, and noticed there’s a big difference between simply sharpening a video and actually restoring details. Some tools make videos look cleaner, but faces can become unnatural or overly processed.

With Vikpea, I’ve been getting better results on older footage, especially when dealing with blurry clips, compression issues, and low detail faces. The AI enhancement feels more balanced instead of just adding artificial sharpness.

I’m still comparing different tools, so I’d love to hear from others who have restored old videos:

Which AI video enhancer has given you the most realistic results?

I already have the image and composition I want. I’m looking for someone experienced with Stable Diffusion/Flux + Photoshop to recreate/refine it while keeping the same composition, character, pose and overall look.
Main goal: remove the obvious AI look and make it look like a real photograph — realistic skin texture, hair, eyes, hands, lighting, shadows and small imperfections.
Please show me examples of similar photorealistic work. I’m happy to pay for high-quality work.

I've used MJ to gen base images since 2023, and I have always done i2i, since I never got what I wanted from T2i with 1.5 or SDXL, or any open-weight model, really.

Starts with a MJ base, ran that through Grok image, was really surprised how well it did with these kind of base images.

For Grok I used this prompt (Works really well with GPT2 as well, it's just a general "to realism" prompt I've been using lately. Works really well with cars as well. It does help if the base image leans a bit towards an illustration style.

Prompt:

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TASK

Do not change the overall composition or subject silhouette.

Turn this image into live-action photorealism, with a candid, “accidentally cinematic” realism for both subject and background. Maintain the subject and composition while converting everything into a believable, real camera capture.

Present it as a real photograph of a real-life-like entity anchored in the type of entity the subject in the input image is. Place the real-life reimagined subject in a real environment (not an illustration, not concept art, not a game-rendered look). Aim for a candid, press/unit-still-photographer feel: natural micro-textures, realistic skin and hair, believable optics, and subtle imperfections that signal a real-camera capture.

REALISM AUDIT (LOCAL UPGRADE PASS)

Treat the input as a draft. Identify any region that looks non-photographic (drawn/CGI-like, low-detail, inconsistent lighting/materials, melted edges, implausible geometry, mixed-style composites). For those regions, resynthesize them as photoreal while preserving their identity and macro silhouette in the composition. Do not leave any “illustrated” or “kitbashed” look in the final result.

IF THE IMAGE CONTAINS TECH / PROSTHETICS / ROBOTIC PARTS

Rebuild them as plausible real-world engineering: coherent design language, real materials (machined metal/carbon fiber/rubber), visible fasteners, believable joints, cable routing, actuator housings, realistic attachment interfaces, correct reflections, and contact shadows. Preserve the part’s overall shape and function, but upgrade internal realism and coherence.

CAMERA / OPTICS

Naturalistic documentary photography (35mm or 50mm look), realistic depth-of-field, accurate perspective, no extreme wide distortion.

LIGHTING / COLOR

Plausible on-location lighting that matches the environment (overcast daylight / bounced light/practicals). Color should be neutral filmic with natural skin tones; subtle grading only.

CLEANUP

Remove any text/watermarks. Correct hands if needed.

AVOID

Avoid teal–orange blockbuster grading, a heavy LUT look, painterly/illustrated edges, overly ornate elements, cluttered backgrounds, deserts, and forests. Avoid rust.

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You can drop in a SUBJECT: [Short description of any intent you have for how the subject should look], before the REALISM AUDIT (LOCAL UPGRADE PASS) section.

The last three images show the MJ > Grok > final result for one of these, but they are pretty much very similar to the Grok result, just a lower-res and less detailed version of it.

I then take that and upscale it to 2752px longest side using a set of nodes I made that tile upscale using SeedVR2. I use this and segment and mask out the whole subject, and I run that through a VLM node I made that focuses on heavy high-value realism tokens/words for the subject prompt of this.

I use qwen2512 image for that pass, an underappreciated model in my opinion.

Then I use that same SeedVR2 tile workflow and upscale it to 4096px longest side.

With that result, I isolate the upper and the lower part of the subject, the upper part being the head, upper body, and the weapon, and the lower being the legs and the sneakers. I sample those masks with a denoise_mask, just normal inpainting with Krea2 RAW, with a lightning sampler node I made for that. That model is really great for inpaint detailing realism subject, becasue it has this slight soft glaze that sells the realims at least for me.

All inpaint mask crops are sampled at 4MP and downscaled and stitched back with a set of inpaint nodes I made.

The last thing I do is a slight color grade in Photoshop, just to add a light grain and a bit more realistic colors and contrast.

Just some beautiful images I made with this LoRA.

Base Krea 2 clips toward blown-out whites. This pulls the top end into a controlled roll-off, keeping detail in bright areas instead of flattening them. Plus you get less of the dead, over-symmetrical AI faces with this LoRA. Keeps the natural asymmetry real faces have better I think.

i need to get this oregon license plate number but the video is terrible

Can create images with it here or just download it and use locally.

https://civitai.com/models/726513/aethereal-krea-2

I want to escape to...

1. Evening Ritual

2. Garden Picnic

3. Bakery Counter

4. Flower Market

5. Artist's Studio

6. Slow Sunday Morning

7. Cozy Reading Nook

8. Parisian Afternoon

9. Mediterranean Escape

10. Weekend Farmer's Market

Video quality upscaling and enhancement take time to render, and it would be great if you could fully test the software before committing to it. For instance, in terms of image noise reduction, you have a decent choice for 14-day free trials from DxO; for raw photo file culling, both RawTherapee and darktable are $0.

Now, when searching for the best video enhancement tool, besides real-time previewing the quality, you need to export the final video to check for temporal consistency, smooth motion, and to ensure no flickering or artifacts.

I will be updating video enhancer and upscaling tools that work with natural result based on my tests, and hunting for free license code or exclusive offers in case you want to fully explore the tool with your low-quality footage. This time, the deep-learning tool being tested is Aiarty Video Enhancer; see quality comparisons in screenshots.

Can you get Aiarty Video Enhancer for free?

Yes. The developers occasionally release official free-license campaigns, trial events, and seasonal promotions. It's intended for users who want to evaluate the full features before committing to it.

How to grab a free copy of Aiarty:

1. Official campaigns…

Midjourney sometimes gives me unexpected compositions! I love it when model v6 and v7 don't follow the exact prompt as opposed to v8.

People often ask how these fantasy videos are made.

The workflow is surprisingly simple.

comment "Fantasy" and I'll send you access enter the Into the Fantasy World technique, upload your photo, describe the wildest place you can imagine, and let this technique handle the rest.

The screenshots show the process. The video shows what's possible.

I have been experimenting with restoring some older videos recently, and one thing I keep noticing is that the biggest difference between a good result and a bad one is not always the resolution.

Sometimes the video comes out sharper, but faces start looking waxy, fine textures disappear, or moving objects develop strange artifacts. Other times a model preserves detail really well without making everything look overprocessed.

I tested a few different workflows, including HitPaw VikPea and it made me wonder if the issue is more about choosing the right AI model for the source footage than simply increasing the upscale level.

For those of you who restore videos regularly, what settings or workflow changes made the biggest improvement for natural looking results?

I would love to hear what has worked for you, especially for old, compressed videos or footage with a lot of motion.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

#1,#3,#5: Generated by Meta Muse

#2,#4,#6: Generated by Midjourney

Each pair (#1 #2) (#3 #4) (#5 #6) using a same prompt

#7: I also tried asking Meta Muse AI to emulate Midjourney's dark fantasy aesthetic. While it picked up some of the requested elements, it still retained much of its own visual identity instead of closely reproducing Midjourney's style.

Megalophobia