Honest comparison
Bigjpg is a long-running AI enlarger that shines on anime and illustrations, with very low prices. PhotoRescue is built for photographs, including the noisy and compressed ones phones produce. An honest look at both.
Facts about other products checked on 9 October 2026 on their own websites. Prices change; check before you buy. PhotoRescue is not affiliated with any product on this page.
Upscale 4× · 480×337 → 1920×1348 · 100% crop
| Bigjpg | PhotoRescue | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Anime and illustrations (its own description); photos also accepted | Photographs, especially phone photos |
| Scales | 2×, 4×, 8×, 16× (free up to 4×) | 1× (Enhance), 4×, 8× (8× uses 2 credits, also on the free plan) |
| Noise reduction | Five levels, from none to highest | No settings; Enhance removes phone noise and compression at the same size |
| Free | 20 images a month, up to 5 MB and 3000 × 3000 px | 3 free credits a day, no sign-up, watermarked, up to 3 MB / 8 MP |
| Paid | Prepaid: Basic $6 for 2 months (500/month), Standard $12 for 6 months (1,000/month), Premium $22 for 12 months (2,000/month) | Pro $9.99/month (200 credits), Pro+ $19.99/month (500 credits); 1 credit per photo; Upscale 8× uses 2 |
| Upload limit (paid) | 50 MB | 20 MB, 30 MP |
| Batch | Paid plans | Paid plans, up to 50 photos |
| File retention | Deleted within 24 hours (72 hours on Premium) | Deleted within 24 hours |
Sources: bigjpg.com home and pricing information, checked 9 October 2026.
100% crops from our own models, so you know what you are comparing against. We do not show Bigjpg results here: run your own photo through both instead (see below). More in the gallery.
Upscale 4× · 480×297 → 1920×1188 · 100% crop
Upscale 8× · 320×208 → 2560×1664 · 100% crop
Enhance · simulated phone photo · 100% crop
Upscale 4× · 320×480 → 1280×1920 · 100% crop
Bigjpg has been enlarging images with neural networks for years, and it is still one of the cheapest ways to do it. Its own description puts anime images and illustrations front and centre, and that is where its approach works best: flat colours and clean lines stay crisp when enlarged, without the halos of a normal resize.
The prices are remarkable. When we checked, the Premium plan cost $22 for a whole year with 2,000 images a month, which works out at roughly a tenth of a cent per image. Paid plans also accept uploads up to 50 MB, go up to 16×, and process images in batch. If you upscale large numbers of drawings, that is excellent value.
Illustrations are mostly edges and flat areas. Photographs are mostly texture: foliage, fur, skin, stone, fabric, water. A good photo upscaler has to rebuild that texture so it looks natural at 100%, without turning it into the smooth, painted look that works for anime but not for a forest.
Real-world photos also arrive damaged. Phone photos taken indoors or at night carry grain and colour blotches, and photos received through WhatsApp or other chat apps carry compression blocks. Bigjpg offers a noise reduction setting, which helps with mild noise. Our Enhance model was trained specifically on the noise, smearing and compression phones and chat apps produce, and removes them at the same size before you decide whether to enlarge.
Our upscalers, 4× and 8×, were trained on photographs and judged at 100% on photographs. The crops on this page are real outputs, not retouched.
On price per image, Bigjpg wins clearly. Our Pro plan is $9.99 a month for 200 credits (about 5 cents per photo, or 10 cents for an 8× upscale, which uses 2 credits) and Pro+ $19.99 for 500 credits (about 4 cents), against fractions of a cent on Bigjpg's longer prepaid plans. If you upscale hundreds of illustrations a month, use Bigjpg.
What we offer instead is models trained on photographs, no settings to tune, and a free daily allowance so you can test on your own photo before you pay. Compare and decide.
Benchmarks on someone else's pictures tell you little about yours. A fair test takes ten minutes:
Free: 3 free credits a day, no sign-up, watermarked, up to 3 MB / 8 MP. Choose Enhance for grainy or chat-app-compressed phone photos, Upscale 4× or 8× to make a photo bigger.
It has a free tier: 20 images a month, up to 5 MB and 3000 × 3000 pixels, and up to 4× when we checked. 8× and 16× need a paid plan.
It accepts photos, but by its own description it works best on anime and illustrations. For photographs, especially noisy or compressed phone photos, a model trained on photos usually gives more natural texture. Test both on your photo.
It will process them, but our models are trained and tested on photographs. For anime and line art, an illustration-focused tool such as Bigjpg is a sensible first choice.
Partly: 3 free credits a day, no sign-up, watermarked, up to 3 MB / 8 MP (1 credit per photo; Upscale 8× uses 2). Paid plans: Pro $9.99/month (200 credits), Pro+ $19.99/month (500 credits), without watermark and with uploads up to 20 MB / 30 MP.
Uploads and results are deleted automatically within 24 hours. They are never used to train AI.
4× or 8×? Use 4× for most photos. Choose 8× only for very small images (up to 1.25 MP) that must become very large.
Drop photos here or choose them
Tap to choose photos from your device
One photo at a time on the free plan.
Upscale 4×
Cost: 1 credit