A lot of people are completely against AI taking over the world, and I can't say I blame them. But there are some areas where AI is genuinely useful without any real downside. A great example is video enhancement. It can help improve blurry, low-resolution footage and upscale videos that would otherwise look soft on modern displays. Since those are things we can't really do ourselves, we might as well take advantage of the technology. So let's look at how to use AI Super Scale in DaVinci Resolve to upscale footage and AI Ultra Sharpen to improve blurry images.
Takeaways:
- What's the best way to use AI Super Scale in Davinci Resolve.
- What are the best settings for AI Ultra Sharpen in Davinci Resolve?
Table of Contents
Using AI Super Scale to Upscale Low-Resolution Footage
AI Super Scale is designed to increase the resolution of a video clip by generating additional pixels. This makes it useful when lower-resolution footage needs to be used in a higher-resolution project. It works in a similar way to frame generation in video games, where the software is essentially filling in missing information. For example, if you are working on a 4K project and most of your footage is already 4K, you can use AI Super Scale to upscale any additional clips that are 1080p or lower. This helps them better match the rest of your footage, at least within reason. It's good, but it can't work miracles.
How to Use AI Super Scale in Davinci Resolve
- Select the clip in your timeline.
- Open the Inspector panel.
- Locate the Super Scale option.
- Enable the feature.
- Choose the appropriate scaling factor.
When converting 1080p footage to 4K, a 2x upscale is usually the correct choice because 4K resolution is double the vertical resolution of 1080p.
Choosing the Right Settings
DaVinci Resolve offers both Standard and Enhanced Super Scale algorithms. The Standard mode provides basic upscaling, while Enhanced uses a more advanced neural engine model and offers additional controls. Enhanced can produce sharper results, but it also requires more processing power.
From my experience using these features, I would only add them to your project just before you plan on exporting it. They are very resource-heavy and will slow down playback quite a lot when you get to any section of your video that has it enabled. Here are a few things you should keep in mind when using AI Super Scale in Resolve.
- The quality of the source footage has a major impact on the final result.
- Footage with a high bitrate, minimal compression, and low noise generally upscales well.
- Clips that contain heavy compression artifacts, excessive grain, or poor image quality are less likely to benefit from the process.
- The type of subject also matters. Landscapes and natural scenes tend to upscale more successfully than images containing fine text or detailed graphics.
Using AI Ultra Sharpen to Improve Clarity
Unlike Super Scale, AI Ultra Sharpen does not create new pixels. Instead, it attempts to improve the clarity of existing image information. Its goal is to reduce the appearance of softness and make slightly blurry footage look more defined. The most important thing with this tool is that Ultra Sharpen cannot make a blurry image perfectly sharp. It can only improve what is already present in the footage. Again, it won't work any miracles, but you can expect 20% better quality footage a lot of the time.
How to Use AI Ultra Sharpen in Davinci Resolve
- Open the Colour page.
- Add a node.
- Drag the Ultra Sharpen effect onto the node.
- Adjust the sharpening amount using the available slider.
The tool is simple to use and can be applied to both HD and 4K footage.
Can you Combine Ultra Sharpen with Super Scale?
Ultra Sharpen can be used on its own or stacked with Super Scale. A lot of people will upscale footage with Super Scale and then use Ultra Sharpen to add clarity. With Ultra Sharpening, it's actually more beneficial to use a little less sharpening than the default settings. Less is more a lot of the time with this tool. As mentioned above, if you decide to do this, do it last because it gets super resource-intensive.
There are Big Limitations
Both AI Super Scale and AI Ultra Sharpen have limits. Neither tool can fully recover lost detail, restore severely blurred footage, or turn out-of-focus text into perfectly readable content. Their effectiveness depends on the quality of the original footage and the severity of the issues being corrected. Slightly soft footage may show noticeable improvement. Severely degraded footage will not.
