Reddit users test whether diffusion models can rescue noisy old photos and video

Ok_Abrocoma_2539 · reddit · 2026-07-27

Users test whether diffusion models can restore noisy old video and photos

A Reddit user asks how to improve an extremely noisy, blurry home video frame and notes that standard upscalers mainly enlarge the noise. Traditional denoising removes noise but introduces heavy blur.

They also point out the core limitation: diffusion models can hallucinate plausible detail, but the identity drifts quickly. With more aggressive denoising, the result may become a clear image of someone else wearing the same clothes. The poster is hoping for a method that at least turns ambiguous blobs into plausible hair, skin, or other recognizable structures without full detail recovery.

Original post →

More from Multimodal

Multimodal channel →