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Ghilz Since: Jan, 2001
2025-06-19 23:48:20

The "Awkward Silence" Entrance one is incredibly bad and should be IP'd at the very least

Edited by Ghilz
Excessive-Menace (Fifth Year at Tropey's)
2025-06-20 00:18:13

eroock also made AI upscales for Random Smoking Scene here and Hitodama Light here. I also find the AI artifacts to look distracting and hampering the overall quality of the images.

Edited by Excessive-Menace SING TO ME, LEND ME THE SONG OF BLASPHEMY
Paradoxic (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded)
2025-06-20 00:43:18

Revert, revert, revert. Quality issues or no, being added unilaterally is sufficient grounds to revert them.

Amonimus (Sergeant)
2025-06-20 00:55:38

Quality upgrades can be done unilaterally per policy. The issue is that people don't think see them as upgrades due to artifacting.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Paradoxic (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded)
2025-06-20 01:14:59

Ah, I see. I'd still support reversion, if only because the 'upgrades' aren't upgrades so as much as downgrades.

bwburke94 (Y2: Electric Boogaloo)
2025-06-20 01:38:32

I typically avoid AI when upscaling because of these problems, but sometimes there's no better option.

(And remember: if the source image exists at a higher resolution, start there.)

2025: the year it all ends?
WarJay77 (Troper Knight)
2025-06-20 01:42:11

If the quality issues are so bad that AI upscaling is the only option, then wouldn't a thread be better than botching the upgrade?

I think what bothers me the most is that eroock has been told of these concerns multiple times and has never shown any interest in hearing us out, let alone stopping. Like, a lot of their responses on the matter have always come across as dismissive. I'm not surprised that they're still going.

Edited by WarJay77 Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Tremmor19 (Y2: Electric Boogaloo)
2025-06-20 02:13:10

support reversion on most of those , esp "Awkward Silence" Entrance. IP thread doesn't seem required, it's just bad and would be better the old way

Paradoxic (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded)
2025-06-20 02:20:29

^^^ Yeah, I'm not against the usage of AI for image upscaling itself, but what I am against is when it's not even done properly.

^^ You basically took the words out of my mouth.

Edited by Paradoxic
eroock Since: Sep, 2012
2025-06-20 02:30:57

Hi, just wonna share my thoughts.

  1. I may have come off as being dismissive in the last discussion but I took the intervention to heart and since then (end of March 25) I have been much more cautious with doing upgrades
  2. Not sure if it's because of different monitors but the AI upgrades I made recently (listed in OP) are subjectively of higher quality than the originals. I spent quite some time on each image to make sure it qualifies as an upgrade. If this is not the case, please point me to the issue. E.g. I still don't see what OP meant is wrong with the current image on Tsurime Eyes. Also what exactly is wrong with Intimacy via Horror or The Quisling? Without specific feedback I cannot improve my judgment.
  3. Going forward, I will use the Image Upgrade thread to get any edits approved

Ghilz Since: Jan, 2001
2025-06-20 10:16:33

My question is why is Intimacy via Horror even an AI upscale? There are high quality scans.

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bettyandme182.jpg

Took me like 10 seconds of googling to find one. Do people not reverse image search first?

WarJay77 (Troper Knight)
2025-06-20 10:56:58

^^ I can see that they at least both have the weird, glossy AI effect and some of the colors seem smudge-y. It also just feels weird to see the art be way sharper and flatter than it ever is supposed to look, like I can tell something is off.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
number9robotic (Experienced Trainee)
2025-06-20 18:14:46

^^^ Heya, thanks for checking in. As was previously discussed in the ATT thread, the goal of this recent initiative on the wiki regarding image upgrades is not merely to get them over a benchmark over pixel width, but to improve them. What your methods fall into are actively a form of Digital Destructionnote  — we should not be losing clarity with these upgrades, nor should they be actively manipulating with the content of the images beyond level of fidelity.

A proper upgrade of the image for "Awkward Silence" Entrance should make peoples' faces clearer, not turn them into cubist nightmares. Tsurime Eyes should not be adding random glows of discoloration that clearly wasn't meant to be there in the original source material. Intimacy via Horror should not be blurring linework, color, and text in ways that clearly didn't exist in the original source material as shown by Ghilz above (text is something that these upscales clearly struggle with; they constantly add smudges to letters like the letterer spilled ink during printing). Your suggestion for Reverse Whodunnit also should not be adding entirely new textures that weren't in the source material, and your suggestion for Tareme Eyes should not be removing them either.

In case it isn't completely obvious now, AI-based recreations are not substitutes for the original source material. They are basically redrawing of images determined by the whims of algorithms cobbled together by a frankenstein-ing of code and image learning models based around images not of said source material you're applying them to. They are, at best, derivative and transformative, and at worst, reductive in faithful depiction of the work. As also pointed out by Ghilz, it's especially bad practice considering that the source material is often easily searchable, making the need to seek out a software algorithm's interpretation of them almost completely redundant. Even if a high-quality work that fits the wiki's current standards doesn't strictly exist or is too difficult to find, there are other means of reaching the technical minimum that doesn't create these unnecessary distortions (I use GIMP, a free program, which has pretty reliable upscaling tools), and even then, that should be the last resort.

I appreciate that on further upgrades, you will consult with the Upgrade Thread, because in addition to there probably being people who can actively dig up any high-quality rips of source material that can be preserved faithfully, I feel like upgrades of any sort should be put on record somewhere beyond the annals of individual user edit histories. If unilateral image upgrades are allowed, fine, but we place commented-out notes linking to image threads that determine the deciding process for Image Picking for documentary purposes — we should also be keeping this sort of thing also on public record for reference.

Thanks for playing Kings Quest V!
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