Help withoutthe runaround.

01 Upscale your first photo

1. 1

   Open CrispUp and tap Add photo to pick one from your library, or Camera to take one.

2. 2

   Choose a style for the kind of picture it is, and 2× or 4×. The line above the controls shows the size you will get and roughly how long it will take.

3. 3

   Tap Upscale. Keep CrispUp open — the work happens on your iPhone’s Neural Engine, and iOS pauses it if the app is sent to the background for long. A long run shows its progress in the Dynamic Island.

4. 4

   Drag the line across the result to compare before and after. Pinch to zoom in on the detail.

5. 5

   Tap Export to choose a format and quality, then Save to Photos, or Share to send it somewhere else.

02 Which style should I pick?

Four trained networks back five styles. Natural Photo and Maximum Detail share the photo network, while pictures, illustrations and damaged scans receive different processing.

• Natural photo — people, pets and places. Adds detail gently around very small features. Recommended.
• Maximum detail — photographs where the strongest sharpening matters. Can invent texture in very small features.
• Digital art — illustration, line art and flat colour. Keeps edges clean instead of inventing texture along them.
• Vintage photo — scans, film grain and heavily compressed pictures. Cleans up damage rather than sharpening it.
• Everyday — screenshots, receipts, anything in a hurry. Much the quickest, and softer on fine texture.

03 Why does it say “limited”?

Full size is the default. Settings → Image sizing offers optional 8000-pixel and 4000-pixel longest-edge limits for smaller files. A limit is applied after upscaling, so the style still sees every original pixel; only the finished picture is brought down. When a limit makes 2× and 4× land on the same size, the editor says “limited” and dims the choice that adds nothing.

04 What is the album on the home screen?

The photos you have opened, newest first. Tap one to open it again — to try another style on it, or 4× after 2×. Touch and hold to remove it. CrispUp keeps its own copy of each photo you open, up to the most recent twenty-four, because it is never given access to your library and could not fetch the photo again otherwise; Settings → Privacy shows how much space that takes, lets you stop keeping recent originals, and clears them. Finished pictures are not added to the album, but CrispUp can keep the latest working result for recovery until you replace or clear it.

05 Will my original change?

No. CrispUp can only add pictures to your library, never change or delete them, and it saves a result only when you tap Save. The result keeps the original’s capture date, camera and location information, so it sorts alongside the original in Photos.

06 An upscale won’t start or finish

• Make sure the photo has downloaded from iCloud. Opening it in Photos first can help.
• Check that your iPhone has free storage. A 4× result of a large photo can be hundreds of megabytes while it is being made, and CrispUp says so before starting if there is not enough room.
• Keep CrispUp open during a long run. iOS suspends the work when the app is in the background for more than a few seconds; the Dynamic Island shows “Paused” when that has happened, and tapping it brings you back to continue.
• If a run or result was interrupted, return to Home and choose Restart interrupted upscale or Reopen last result.
• If Photos saving is denied, allow CrispUp to add photos in iPhone Settings → Apps → CrispUp, or use Share to send the picture elsewhere.
• Try Everyday first on a very large photo. It is several times faster and a good check that everything works.

07 HEIC, JPEG or PNG?

HEIC is what the iPhone camera already uses and gives the smallest files. JPEG opens anywhere and is larger at the same quality. PNG is lossless and very large at these resolutions. The quality slider applies to HEIC and JPEG; the export sheet shows the file size for whatever you choose.

08 Photos and advertising privacy

Upscaling happens on your device; no photo is ever uploaded, and there is no account. The ad on the home screen is delivered by Google, is not personalised, and is not shown at all in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland.

Read the full privacy policy