Upscale Before Ads: Natural vs Creative Mode

Upscale is a second opinion on the file

The existing upscaling guide covers modes. This one is the ads checklist: natural 4x for PDPs, creative 2x only when you want texture invented. Do not creative-upscale a logo.

This page is the Pixogen-specific version of the topic. Credit numbers below match the generate button in the studio as of August 2026. If a model ships a new badge, we update the routing note here within a day — that is the newsroom rule, not a landing-page rewrite.

Credit math

1 credit typical. Do not upscale the misses.

Credits never expire. Failed jobs refund automatically. Do not budget as if a missed render is gone. Packs start at 200 credits for $19.99; a launch week for a persona is usually cheaper than one stock-license bundle.

Pipeline on Pixogen

Keeper still → Clarity → ad unit. Video twin: /ai-video-upscaler.

Internal links that belong on this job: the matching tool landing, the pipeline hub, and one glossary term. Do not leave a guide live without those three. Related reading lives in Learn and Academy, not in a footer dump.

Model routing

Pixogen Clarity / Clarity Video.

If you are choosing an engine for the first time, open /models/compare. Portraits, motion, lipsync and photoreal each have a different default. Wan 3.0 is the motion hero as of this writing; Nano Banana 2 still wins in-image text.

Mistakes that waste credits

• 4x on a 200px face crop and calling it print-ready.

Publish checklist

1. Lock identity before you batch.
2. Write the credit total on the brief so the client sees the number before the job.
3. Export clean — no watermark — then brand in your editor.
4. Ping the changelog if this guide rode a model drop.

See /academy/upscaling-guide-when-which-mode, /ai-image-upscaler.