Microsoft Photos can now upscale and enhance images using AI

According to yesterday’s Windows blog post, the Microsoft Photos app is now being updated with the new Super Resolution feature that can enlarge and improve the quality of low-resolution images using AI.

With Super Resolution, you’ll be able to increase the resolution of a photo up to eight times its original size. It’s a great way to clean up old pictures from outdated digital cameras and to upscale images for creative or editorial purposes. It’s one of the more exciting features that have been planned as part of Microsoft’s Windows 11 AI roadmap.

Because Super Resolution employs AI technology, the feature is only being made available to Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs. (Copilot+ PCs are next-gen AI PCs with a special component called an NPU, which handles all AI processing and frees up the CPU and GPU for other uses.) It’s unclear whether Super Resolution will eventually come to non-Copilot+ PCs in the future, but most likely not.

Super Resolution is currently only available to Windows Insiders on Windows 11 across all the Insider Channels. There’s no word yet as to when it will arrive on the stable version of Windows 11.

This update to Microsoft Photos also brings OCR support (the ability to copy text from an image to your clipboard) to both Windows !0 and 11, usability enhancements to the Zoom feature, and single-click opening of images from File Explorer’s Gallery.

Further reading: Useful File Explorer tips to keep under your belt