ON1 Resize AI is a photo enlargement tool that helps turn small images into larger, sharper photos and prints. It's aimed at photographers, designers, and anyone with older pictures that could use a little help before being framed. This is paid software, but a 30-day trial lets you try it on your own photos before buying.

You can download it as a stand alone or get it as a Plugin for Photoshop, Corel or Affinity if you prefer to use it that way.

What ON1 Resize AI Does

ON1 Resize AI combines AI upscaling with ON1's Genuine Fractals technology to enlarge photos up to 10 times their original dimensions. Rather than simply stretching the existing pixels, it uses AI to create more convincing detail in textures, faces, and edges.

That makes it useful for enlarging small digital photos, salvaging a tight crop, or preparing an image for a larger print. The original still matters, though. AI can generate believable detail, but it can't guarantee that the detail matches what was actually photographed.

Give Those Old Family Photos Another Shot

Remember those family photos you scanned on your home scanner in 2005? They looked fine on the monitor you had then. Try printing an enlargement today, and the limitations become a little more obvious.

That's a good use for ON1 Resize AI. Those old scans might benefit from better sharpening and a larger output size before you print them for a frame or family album. The sharpening is excellent, and Face Recovery is particularly helpful with portraits where faces look slightly soft or out of focus.

Face Recovery includes adjustable strength, so compare the results with the original, especially on familiar faces. You want Grandma to look clearer, but you still want her to look like Grandma.

Choose Speed or Higher Quality

You get a choice of AI models depending on your priorities. The Standard Model favors speed, making it a sensible starting point for larger batches or less powerful hardware. The Highest Quality Model uses diffusion-based AI to reconstruct finer textures and edges, making it worth trying when preparing a favorite image for a larger print.

We like having that choice. Not every photo needs the most demanding processing, and sometimes getting through a folder of pictures matters more than squeezing every last bit of detail out of one.

Our office machines had no problem running the software, but processing time will depend on your hardware, image size, and selected model.

Printing Tools That Earn Their Space

The printer and resolution presets are a welcome feature, particularly for photographers preparing work for clients. You can specify exact dimensions, set the output resolution, and apply sharpening suited to the finished print.

Gallery wrap options add the extra image area needed to wrap a canvas around its frame. Tiling divides an oversized image into smaller printable sections for posters, murals, and other large projects.

Soft proofing lets you preview an image using a printer color profile. It's a useful way to check how colors may translate to paper before committing expensive ink and photo stock.

Batch Processing Saves Time

If you're preparing dozens or hundreds of images, ON1 Resize AI can apply consistent resizing and export settings across the collection. You can set file names, formats, destinations, and presets without repeating the same work for every picture.

A photographer preparing wedding photos for printing, for example, can process a collection using consistent output settings. It's also useful for working through folders of older family pictures, although individual portraits may still benefit from a closer look at the Face Recovery settings.

Support for layered Photoshop files adds flexibility for photographers and designers who need to resize work containing text, masks, and other layers.

Works Standalone or With Your Photo Editor

You don't need Photoshop or Lightroom to use ON1 Resize AI. It runs as a standalone application on Windows and macOS.

If you already use Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom Classic, plugin support lets you incorporate it into your existing editing workflow. That gives occasional users a separate application while allowing photographers to keep enlargement closer to their other editing tools.

Installation and a Couple of Interface Quirks

Installation is straightforward, but you'll need an ON1 account and an email address to activate the 30-day trial.

After installation, you'll also need to download the AI models. In our setup, those required more than 2.5GB of additional space, so allow room beyond the main application and time for another download.

Finishing an image is a little less obvious than we'd like. Once you're happy with your settings, look for the blue check button at the bottom to apply them and continue the saving workflow. It's easy to overlook when you're expecting a familiar Save button.

The interface also displays a histogram showing the image's tonal levels. We'd like adjustable Levels controls right there for a quick brightness or contrast correction. Having the information visible makes the absence of those adjustments more noticeable.

A Few Things to Consider

ON1 Resize AI is specialized software. If you only need to shrink screenshots or resize pictures for email, plenty of free utilities can handle that job.

For this version, you'll need 64-bit Windows 10 version 22H2 or later, Windows 11, or macOS 13 or newer. ON1 lists 8GB of RAM as the minimum, or 16GB when memory is shared with the GPU. Graphics requirements matter too, so check the full requirements before installing it on an older machine.

A one-time purchase option is available without a mandatory subscription, although future major version upgrades may cost extra.

Use the trial on your own pictures before buying. A polished sample image doesn't tell you how well the software will handle your faded family scan, and extremely blurry originals can still be challenging.

Geek Verdict

ON1 Resize AI gives photographers and everyday users useful ways to enlarge small photos and prepare them for printing. The sharpening, adjustable Face Recovery, and choice between faster processing and higher quality are the highlights for us. Printing presets, gallery wrap tools, and batch processing add practical value for people doing this regularly.

The extra model downloads deserve a heads-up, the saving controls could be clearer, and we'd welcome basic Levels adjustments. Still, if you have older photos to enlarge or prints to prepare, the trial is worth a look. Start with one of those family scans and see whether it produces something you'd actually want to frame.

This is a very good product, but bot really isn't an every day use product. Best use here is if you have a large amount of photos that you want to clean up and scale for later printing or professional photographer s looking to get every pixel perfect.