---
name: upscale-film-still
description: "Upscale a film still, screenshot or small reference image with Magnific Ultra Sublime 4× — Portraits for sharper faces, Balanced for a softer look closer to the source; keeps focus, grain and faces, invents nothing. Part of the upscale meta-skill."
---

These creative references describe source experiments with external tools. Use your own supported account and tools; this download installs no automation. Settings and timings are experimental observations, not current FlashBoards availability.

# upscale-film-still · a film still, screenshot, small reference

## Choose

🏆 Default: Magnific Upscaler · `ultra-sublime`, `2x`, `precisionPreset=grainyAnalog` — the best look in our tests; 4× only when the size is needed (it looks worse).

| Input size | Tool · settings (4×, when the size is needed) | Output |
| --- | --- | --- |
| ~700×300 | Magnific Upscaler · `ultra-sublime`, `4x` | ~2800×1200 |
| ~1000×500 | same | ~4000×2000 |
| ~1200×650 | same | ~4800×2600 |
| 🏆 any | `ultra-sublime`, `2x`, `grainyAnalog` | 2× |

**Preset (7 stills, ~1046×580, under 35 s — Kill Bill, The Force Awakens, The Hobbit, 300, Cuckoo’s Nest, Silence of the Lambs, Inglourious Basterds):**
- `precisionPreset=portraits` — sharper: pores, lashes, single hairs, metal; adds some texture to backgrounds.
- `precisionPreset=balanced` — softer, closer to the source: smoother skin, calmer backgrounds.
- Both kept every face in 14 runs.

Measured on source runs (Blade Runner 698×305, The Power of the Dog 700×293, Dunkirk 1000×501, Vertigo 1200×650):
noise and JPEG blocks gone, hair, knit, sand, paintings resolved, faces unchanged, **out-of-focus areas stay out of focus**,
tiny far figures stay tiny — nothing is invented.

## Steps

1. Take the largest source available when output dimensions matter.
2. Upload it through your own supported Magnific account/tool, select the settings, wait for completion, download and compare with the source enlarged to the same size.

## Never

- Expect it to fix focus or motion blur — it keeps the lens look.
- Creative Vivid / Wild on faces of real people — they change who it is.
- Image models as upscalers on a real face. Tested on a half-size still (523×291, The Silence of the Lambs) with the strict prompt: GPT Image 2.5 Flare 2K low (29 s) — sharpest photo, but cooler colour and deeper lines (a redraw); Flare 4K low (42 s) — paints, grey-green skin; Nano Banana 2 4K (37 s) — invents veins, spots, stubble, older face. Only Magnific Ultra Sublime 4× Portraits  kept the person.
- A smaller input is fine: the same still at half size through 4× Portraits was as sharp at the same viewing size only half as big.