crisp.photos VS https://alanaknows.com/

crisp.photos's answer

• React and Vite for the interface
• ONNX Runtime Web running the AI models on WebGPU, with a WebAssembly fallback for devices without GPU support
• Web Workers, so upscaling never freezes the page
• Tiled inference, so large images fit in GPU memory
• 4x-UltraSharpV2 Lite (photos) and 2x-AnimeSharpV3 (anime), licensed from Kim2091
• WebCodecs for the before/after video generator
• Static hosting with Docker and nginx, and Plausible for privacy-friendly analytics

crisp.photos's answer

I wanted to know whether a serious upscaling model could run entirely in a browser. Making it fast was the hard part. Browsers can now use the graphics card through WebGPU, but the model I wanted used operations the browser's runtime couldn't run on the GPU, so each image kept bouncing between graphics card and processor. I rewrote those parts of the model by hand until everything stayed on the GPU. That cut processing time by about two thirds.

crisp.photos's answer

Your photo never leaves your computer. crisp.photos runs a full AI upscaling model inside the browser tab, on your own graphics card, so nothing is uploaded to a server. It turns a 512×512 image into a 2048×2048 one in about 10 seconds on a MacBook.

Getting there took real work. The original model file ran partly on the CPU in the browser, and a 1080×920 photo took 114 seconds. I rewrote the model so every step runs on the GPU, and the same photo now takes 37 seconds. The output is identical to the original model's.

crisp.photos's answer

Because it's free with no catch. In June I checked the ten upscalers that rank highest on Google, including Adobe, Canva, Upscale.media and iLoveIMG. All ten process your image on their servers, and most use credits, size caps, sign-ups or watermarks to push you towards a paid plan.

crisp.photos has none of that: no account, no watermark, no daily limit, no upload. You can queue a whole batch and download them as one zip. The model behind it, 4x-UltraSharpV2, is one of the most respected open upscaling models, and I licensed it from its author, Kim2091.

crisp.photos's answer

People with a photo that's too small or too blurry for what they need: an old family picture going to print, a product shot for a shop listing, a screenshot for a slide. They want a bigger, sharper version in a minute, without installing Photoshop or creating another account.

A second group is anime and manga fans. For them there's a separate upscaler tuned for line art, the free waifu2x alternative on crisp.photos/anime-upscaler.

crisp.photos's answer

crisp.photos is free and has no accounts, so there are no customers in the usual sense, and I deliberately don't track who uploads what. In the last 30 days about 1,500 people used it, spending 7.6 minutes per visit on average.