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AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2020 9:55 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Welcome to AI Upscaling of Housepets! This topic is dedicated to the usage of AI Upscaling on Rick Griffin's original art, to give it the attention it deserves! What is AI Upscaling I hear you ask? Read on and find out!

It all started when I came across a beautiful panel of Grape and Max in one of the comics. So I took the time to clean it up and get the following frame:

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Neat, huh? But I thought it was a shame that the resolution was so low. In a perfect world, Rick Griffin would publish all the comics in the original quality with and without speech bubbles so that we could see the art the way it deserves to be seen (If Rick actually does this, let me know!)

So, I turned to the next best answer: AI upscaling! With the modern technology of today, we can use AI (Artificial Intelligence) to increase the quality of images by basically having a computer "guess" what the image would look like if it was in a higher resolution. By looking around the internet, I found the following website for upscaling of anime-style images for free called Waifu2x.
On the website, I chose the image file I wanted to upscale, I put the "style" setting to "artwork" and the "upscaling" to "2x". Then I clicked "convert". This opened a new tab with the new image. I was completely mind-blown. I stared at the screen for a solid 15 seconds. I copied the image, pasted it in my image editing software (paint.net) and polished it a bit. This is the result:

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Pretty amazing, don't you think? Of course, I didn't stop there! I went ahead and scaled it up one more time. Here is a handy comparison of the different sizes:

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I don't know about you, but I'm impressed, it's like magic(k)! If you have a favorite panel that you want to upgrade, now you know what to do! So, in this topic you will find Rick's art in increased resolution! I write tags under each image in tiny letters so you can find the images featuring your favorite characters by using the "search" feature in your browser.

I have also created a public Google Drive folder with all the upscaled images that appear in this topic. All the images are in the main folder and I'm trying to make additional folders for each character with shortcuts to the images they appear in, so that you can easily look up your favorites, but Google is not currently supporting that. In the not-so-distant future it's gonna work like a dream, don't worry!

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2020 2:07 pm
by Nathan Kerbonaut
Thanks for sharing this site! I've been looking for a good upscaling AI for a while, the best result I've found was some fancy scientific neural network that required a whole bunch of custom software to run.

Here's one of my favorite pics of Tarot, upscaled 2 and 4 times (won't post em here cuz they're big). Super impressive :D

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:30 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Nathan Kerbonaut wrote:Here's one of my favorite pics of Tarot, upscaled 2 and 4 times (won't post em here cuz they're big). Super impressive :D
If there's anywhere you should post these images, it's here!
Here is the cutest valentine of 2010 upscaled and glorious:

Image
Mr. Bigglesworth

Orginal quality
2x upscaling

I can't get over how amazing this technology is. You could literally only dream of these things 10 years ago.



Say hi to Tiger and Friends! Orginal quality to the left and 2x upscaling to the right.

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Tiger Marvin

Source comic
Orginal quality
2x upscaling


Next up: Marion and Lois, Valentines 2020 edition!

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Marion

Orginal quality
2x upscaling


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Lois

Original quality
2x upscaling


Precognition chess!

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Sabrina Tarot

Source comic
Original quality
2x upscaling

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2020 3:49 pm
by Cesco
Thanks a lot for this great and useful website, the results are neat! :D
Very nice results with Houepsets! comic draws. :) Anyway, for the Valentine cards there's no need, since here there are all of them in higher resolution. ;)

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2020 3:06 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Cesco wrote:Thanks a lot for this great and useful website, the results are neat! :D
Very nice results with Houepsets! comic draws. :) Anyway, for the Valentine cards there's no need, since here there are all of them in higher resolution. ;)
Well, if you want a poster-sized valentines card, then you can upscale those high-quality images a couple of times!



Anyway, here's a pretty frame of our favorite gryphon!

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Pete

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Orginal quality
2x upscaling

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Now let's give Bino some appreciation:

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Bino Sasha

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Original quality
2x upscaling

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Bino Maxwell

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Original quality
2x upscaling



Back to Pete, upscaled 2x, because he's beautiful!

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Pete

Source comic
Quality comparison

Yes, Pete is snoring in his thoughts, cuz that's the kind of thing he'd do ironically.

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 1:57 pm
by Amazee Dayzee
You did a very nice job with all of these! I hope that you can post more!

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 3:07 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Amazee Dayzee wrote:You did a very nice job with all of these! I hope that you can post more!
You got it! Give it up for Dragon and Satau!

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Satau Dragon

Source comic
Original Quality
2x upscaled

Dragon is so sassy. I love it.

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Dragon

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Original quality
2x upscaling




Fido and Sabrina are, like, our next favourite couple, right? Here they are!

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Fido Sabrina

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Original quality
Quality comparison

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2020 5:15 pm
by Amazee Dayzee
Very nice job on the group that you just did! Keep it up!

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2020 5:02 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Amazee Dayzee wrote:Very nice job on the group that you just did! Keep it up!
I serve the people! Here is King drowning in human frustration:

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King

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Original quality
2x upscaled



And Sasha, the source of King's frustration:

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Sasha

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2x upscaled



Sometimes I wanna say ACAB, but then I see these good boys:

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Fido Kevin Fox

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Original quality
2x upscaled



Enough dogs, here's our favorite androgynous feline couple!

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Fiddler Keys

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Original quality
2x upscaling



And our favorite singular androgynous feline:

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Grape

Source comic
Original quality
2x upscaled

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2020 2:47 pm
by Amazee Dayzee
Nice job on these also! They definitely came out wonderful!

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 4:01 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Amazee Dayzee wrote:Nice job on these also! They definitely came out wonderful!
Thank!


SABRINA!!!1!!! DIDJA PUT YA NAME IN THE GOBLET OF FIYAA?!?!

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Sabrina Fox

Source comic
Original Quality
2x upscaling



Here's a big one! Print it out and hang it in your room!

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Sabrina
It's really creeping me out that the higher quality image looks darker than the low-res, but I have checked and double-checked that they are the exact same color...

Source comic
Original quality
2x upscaling



Now Sabrina and Tarot:

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Tarot Sabrina

Source comic
Original quality
2x upscaled

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 4:55 pm
by Amazee Dayzee
As I said before you are doing wonderful work! I am glad that I can see more of this!

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2020 5:24 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Amazee Dayzee wrote:As I said before you are doing wonderful work! I am glad that I can see more of this!
It's not gonna stop anytime soon!

Here are our glorious Security guards! I'm especially proud of this one since I had to edit out Mile's speech bubble.

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Rodney Poncho Miles Daryl Jack Deadeye Other Daryl

Source comic
Original Quality
2x upscaled

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2020 5:31 pm
by Amazee Dayzee
Really wonderful job on this! It is weird to see Poncho look so cocky back then because now he seems to be slightly more level headed.

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:37 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Amazee Dayzee wrote:Really wonderful job on this! It is weird to see Poncho look so cocky back then because now he seems to be slightly more level headed.
Yeah he isn't much older than the Mile's cubs so I guess he did go through some maturity as time goes by.



Here's Tiger and Marvin again!

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Tiger Marvin

Source comic
Original quality
2x upscaling


And here is King to illustrate how I feel rn:

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King

Source comic
Original quality
2x upscaling

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2020 11:43 am
by Amazee Dayzee
Really wonderful job on these new frames! Please keep up the good work!

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 4:29 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Thank you!

Let's give some love to wolf love:

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Lucretia Miles

Source comic
Original quality
2x upscaling

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 4:22 pm
by Amazee Dayzee
That really also came out totally nice! Very astounding job there! Though I have to say I like Miles without his glasses. :ugeek:

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2020 5:02 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Amazee Dayzee wrote:That really also came out totally nice! Very astounding job there! Though I have to say I like Miles without his glasses. :ugeek:
Miles: intellectual in the streets :geek: , sexy wolf in the sheets 8-)


Say hi to our one true pairing!

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Bailey King

Source comic
Original quality
2x upscaling

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2020 12:53 pm
by Amazee Dayzee
The two of them really do look so cute and have a lot of chemistry together especially in that frame of the comic!

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2020 3:19 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Amazee Dayzee wrote:The two of them really do look so cute and have a lot of chemistry together especially in that frame of the comic!
Yeah, no wonder people love King, his character development is like nothing else in the comic.



Here is the Grape and Satau special edition! They looked so cute in all these frames that I took all of them. This is Rick's artstyle that I miss the most...

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Satau Grape

Source comic
Original quality
2x upscaled

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Satau Grape

Source comic
Original quality


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Satau Grape

Source comic
Original quality


Image
Satau Grape

Source comic
Original quality

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2020 2:39 pm
by Amazee Dayzee
Really great job on these once again! I wonder if Grape has ever been with Mungo and it's just been them?

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2020 3:57 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Amazee Dayzee wrote:Really great job on these once again! I wonder if Grape has ever been with Mungo and it's just been them?
She would definitely want to!


Remember the cool image of the Milton security guards? Turns out Rick posted an even bigger original version of it on the official Facebook account. It's a whopping 1713x1270 pixels!

BUT if you zoom in, you'll see that it is terribly noisy. Here is a close up of four-finger-handsome Jack:

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How do we fix this? Don't despair! Waifu2x can still save us! Waifu2x has a noise reduction feature so that you can remove noise from artwork without increasing the size. If I select the noisy image, I can set the noise reduction to "highest" and upscaling to "none". This is the result:

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Rodney Poncho Miles Daryl Jack Deadeye Other Daryl

Here is a before and after:

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Now it's truly a poster worthy image!



Here is King again because he's the best:

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King

Source comic
Original quality
2x upscaling



I'm pretty proud of this one because I had to reconstruct a third of Mungo's left ear because of a speech bubble 8-)

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Mungo

Source comic
2x upscaled


Fox is definitely gay for Mungo :lol: Here's only the upscaled version because this one's so big

Image
Mungo Fox

Source comic

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2020 2:58 pm
by Amazee Dayzee
Really like how you made all of these came out! However I still have to say I am hoping Fox and Mungo AREN'T gay. Because I wanna ship them with my female characters. 8-)

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2020 11:08 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Amazee Dayzee wrote:Really like how you made all of these came out! However I still have to say I am hoping Fox and Mungo AREN'T gay. Because I wanna ship them with my female characters. 8-)
Yeah I kinda want Fox to realize he's a closeted cat-lover...


Housepets gay edition! Starting with Bruce and Roosy :D

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Roosevelt Bruce

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Original quality
2x upscaled

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Roosevelt Bruce

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Original Quality
2x upscaled


This might be my favorite frame so far:

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Keene Breel

Source Comic
Original quality
2x upscaled


Continuing the LGBTQ trend: Housepets! gender dysphoria edition: :lol:

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Marion

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Original quality
2x upscaled

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Marion

Source Comic
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2x upscaled

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Marion

Source Comic
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2x upscaled

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Marion

Source Comic
Original quality
2x upscaled


Fox is definitely straight for Sasha:

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Fox Sasha

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2x upscaled

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King Miles

Source Comic
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2x upscaled


Tiger being self-centered as usual:

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Zach Tiger

Original quality
2x upscaled

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Lois Marion

Source Comic
Original quality
2x upscaled

That was a big update, enjoy!

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2020 2:22 pm
by Amazee Dayzee
Love that you are still doing these! They are very awesome!

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2020 10:38 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Ok this one is huge! You'll have to open it in a new tab to get the actual size.

2x upscaled:
Image
Lucretia Rockstar Hawk

Source comic

Now the next one here is a masterpiece. Miles and Lana aren't actually sipping in the same panel, so I had to pull all the stops in paint.net to patch them together like this 8-) not to toot my own horn or anything...

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Miles Lana

Source comic
Original Quality
2x upscaled

Here are the upscaled panels from "No Need to be Short"

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King Sasha
Original Quality

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King Sasha
Original Quality

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King Sasha
Original quality

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King Sasha
Original quality

Needless to say, the difference is impressive!

Image

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2020 1:42 pm
by Amazee Dayzee
They really did come out really nice and clear indeed! Keep up the good work!

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2020 6:37 pm
by NHWestoN
They did indeed … and I still like Fox and Sasha as a couple over Sasha and Kevin.

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2020 6:54 pm
by Nathan Kerbonaut
The only thing better than blushy King is blushy King in HD :D

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2020 10:42 pm
by Amazee Dayzee
Maybe the only thing better than that would be red-faced King in HD. XD

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2020 4:02 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Careful what you wish for!

Image
Kitsune King

Original Quality
Source comic

Here's a smol one of Mr The Wolf for a change:

Image
Miles

Source comic
Original quality
2x upscaled

I'm like 100% sure that Miles is the teacher that everyone crushes on

Image
Miles

Source comic
Original quality
2x upscaling

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2020 11:39 am
by Amazee Dayzee
I think I am finally starting to come around to Miles with glasses. :mrgreen:

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2020 5:12 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Here's to celebrate the end of the arc! Source 1. Source 2

Image
Sasha King Bailey

Image
Kevin King Bailey

This gave me a funny idea...

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2020 12:20 pm
by Amazee Dayzee
I'm wondering if King might end up developing a man crush on Kevin based on that blushing.

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 5:01 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Amazee Dayzee wrote:I'm wondering if King might end up developing a man crush on Kevin based on that blushing.
Maybe all the dogs have a crush on Kevin the same way they have a crush on Sasha :shock:

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 9:18 am
by MasterAbsinthe
Image
Kevin Bailey

KEVIN WHAT ARE YOU DOING THAT'S A MARRIED WOMAN

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 5:35 pm
by Amazee Dayzee
I can just hear the heads of the Kingley shippers exploding.

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2020 3:02 pm
by MasterAbsinthe
Image
Sasha Bailey

BAILEY WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS THINK ABOUT KING AND THE CHILDREN

Re: AI upscaling of Housepets!

Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2020 3:04 pm
by Amazee Dayzee
Somehow I think that Sailey would have MUCH more shippers than either Baivin or Kingley. XD