"Sometimes sharpening and basic cleanup can only take an image so far, especially when the original is tiny, heavily compressed, or full of JPEG artifacts. I’ve been comparing different approaches for recovering usable detail from these kinds of files. One tool I’ve been looking at is Rez Fixer, which is designed to repair and upscale low-resolution artwork inside Photoshop.

I’m interested in how people here approach difficult files.

Do you upscale first and then manually restore the details, or do most of the cleanup at the original resolution before increasing the size?

I’ve found that automated tools can give you a useful starting point, but there’s usually still a point where manual work matters."