From first photo
to finished result.

Install

1. Mac: Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) with macOS 14 or later. Download the DMG from the download page, open it and drag LocalSR along the arrow onto the Applications folder beside it, then open it from Applications. The app is signed and notarized by Apple, so macOS only asks you to confirm that you want to open something downloaded from the internet.
2. Windows 10 or 11: run the installer. It is not code-signed yet, so SmartScreen warns first: choose More info, then Run anyway.
3. Linux: make the AppImage executable (chmod +x LocalSR-*.AppImage) and run it.

More memory lets you use the larger models and bigger outputs. The standard Windows and Linux downloads run on the CPU, which is slower than a Mac's GPU. For a graphics card, pick the edition that matches it on the download page: AMD ROCm on Linux, or NVIDIA CUDA and DirectML, which are still untested. The CUDA and ROCm editions come in parts: download every part into one folder, then follow the steps under Downloads in parts. The Mac app updates itself; on Windows and Linux, download new versions from the website for now.

On the first launch a short welcome appears. It links back to this guide and mentions the anonymous update-check count and where to turn it off.

The window

• Media on the left: everything you added, with its status. The + button adds files. With two or more items, switch between Single and Batch at the top.
• The preview in the middle: drop files here. Videos play here before they are upscaled. After processing it shows the before-and-after comparison.
• Enhance on the right: what to do (the task), how (quality, content, what to fix first) and, under Advanced, output and hardware settings.
• The status bar at the bottom: what the next job will make (for example 600 × 400 → 2400 × 1600 · 4× · Neural Engine), progress and time estimates, the start button, and Reveal and Open for the selected item’s result.
• The menu bar has the rest: View → Models… (⇧⌘M) opens the model library, View → Performance and Diagnostics… runs a benchmark, LocalSR → Check for Updates… handles updates, and Help → LocalSR User Guide opens this page.

There is no toolbar: the window buttons sit beside Media, and the pane headings form the top of the window. In a narrow window a slim bar switches between Media, Preview and Enhance.

Your first image

1. Add a photo. Drop it onto the preview, or click the preview to choose files. JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, AVIF, GIF and camera RAW (DNG, Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm and more) work, and on a Mac also HEIC and JPEG XL, which macOS decodes.
2. Choose a task under Enhance: Upscale makes photos and artwork 2×, 3× or 4× larger; Restore removes noise, blur or JPEG artifacts without enlarging; Edit changes an image from a written instruction (see below). Upscale also handles videos: select a clip and it switches to video.
3. Choose the quality. Quick is fast and good for most photos. Best is slower and keeps finer texture. Models are not included in the installer; each card says how big its download is until it is on your Mac.
4. Say what the image is. Pick Photo or Illustration, and under Fix first choose problems to clean up before enlarging, such as noise, JPEG artifacts or blur. Model underneath shows which model runs at each step; Change… opens the library.
5. Start with the button at the bottom right. It says Upscale selected or Restore selected, depending on the task. The first time, it says Download 4 MB, then upscale: it fetches the model, checks it, and starts. While it downloads, the same button cancels.
6. Check the result in the comparison, then press Open to view the file or Reveal to show it in Finder.

Upscaling models invent plausible detail. Text, faces, eyes and fine patterns can look convincing and still be wrong, so look closely before you rely on a result. LocalSR never overwrites your original.

Edit with a prompt

Edit (new in 0.1.4, experimental, Mac only) changes a photo from a sentence you write. It uses a local image-editing model, so nothing is uploaded.

1. Select one image and choose Edit under Enhance.
2. Write what should change in the text field, for example “make it a snowy winter day” or “remove the person on the left”.
3. Check the model under Model. The first time, LocalSR suggests the largest model that fits your Mac; Change… opens the Edit with a prompt group of the model library. FLUX.2 klein 4B (about 5 or 8 GB) is the one for 16 GB Macs; Qwen Image Edit 2511 (11 to 26 GB) needs 24 GB or more. Each download is checked before use.
4. Press Edit selected. The result is a new PNG named like photo_localsr_edit_1a2b3c4d.png, shown in the comparison.

Edit size (512, 768 or 1024 px on the longest side) and, under Advanced, the step count and seed are optional. Larger sizes need more memory. Before an edit starts, LocalSR checks that enough memory is free, and it stops the edit if the Mac runs short. If an edit is refused or stopped, quit other apps and try again.

Where results go

Results are always saved as new files. By default they go to your Desktop; change the folder under Advanced → Save to. File → Open Output Folder opens it.

The name tells you what happened: photo_upscaled_4x.png, scan_denoised.png or clip_video_2x.mp4. If a file with that name exists, a number is added instead of replacing it.

Open and Reveal always act on the item selected in the Media list. Select a different finished item to open its result; the buttons are hidden while the selected item has no result yet.

Compare before and after

When the selected item has a result, the preview shows the original on the left of the divider and the enhanced version on the right. Drag the divider, or focus it and use the arrow keys. It stays where it is while you zoom and pan, so a close look still shows both sides.

Original · Split · Enhanced above the preview switches between the whole original, the divider and the whole result; the same views are in the View menu, and a new result starts in Split. Hold M to see the original from any view.

Scroll or pinch to zoom. The zoom controls appear at the bottom right while the pointer is over the picture. View → Actual Pixels (1:1) shows real pixels, which is the honest way to judge detail; View → Fit to Window zooms back out. A finished video sits on the same canvas with the same switch; the bar below it plays and pauses (or press Space), scrubs and changes the speed, and both versions play in sync.

Many files at once

1. Switch the Media list to Batch, or use Add Folder…: a folder becomes a batch.
2. Choose the task and quality once. The start button now says Start 12 items (or however many there are).
3. While the queue runs, the status bar shows an estimate for the current item and the whole queue, measured from items already finished. You can keep adding files with Add selected to queue, or stop with Cancel queue.

Images and videos need separate runs, because they use different tasks. Try one representative file first before processing a large folder.

Models, presets and recipes

View → Models… (⇧⌘M), or Change… under Model, opens the library. It lists every model with what it is good at, its size, author, license and source. Download or remove models there, or pin a model to the Quick or Best preset for a task. The model guide explains each model in plain words.

If you often use the same setup, press Save as recipe… next to Quality. Recipes appear next to Quick and Best and in the Presets menu.

You can also use your own model: in the library, under Your own file, choose a checkpoint. .safetensors files are strongly recommended. The two optional HAT face models are only available as copies you supply yourself, because their rights are unresolved.

Video

• Add a clip, choose Upscale and press Start selected video. Every frame goes through the image model, and the original timing, rotation and audio are kept.
• iPhone and camera videos (H.264, HEVC, AAC) open directly on a Mac. WMV, DivX, FLV and a few older formats need FFmpeg; LocalSR shows the install command when a file needs it and uses an installed FFmpeg automatically. On Windows and Linux, H.264 and HEVC need that FFmpeg too.
• Exports use the Automatic format by default: on a Mac, HEVC written by the Mac’s hardware encoder while the next frames are upscaled; MKV, HDR preservation and Windows and Linux use AV1. Under Advanced → Video format you can choose AV1, VP9, lossless FFV1, or H.264 and HEVC. macOS writes H.264 and HEVC with its own encoders into MP4, and those files play almost everywhere.
• Video is slow on any computer. Minutes of footage can take hours. Start with a few seconds, check the result, then run the whole clip.
• HDR preservation, de-flicker and the SeedVR2 video models are marked Labs: they work, but their quality is not established yet.

Output and hardware settings

Open Advanced at the bottom of the Enhance panel.

• Output scale and Format (PNG, JPEG, TIFF or WebP) for images; Save to for the output folder.
• Preserve safe metadata and color profile converts colors to sRGB with a matching profile and copies only the date, artist and copyright. Location, camera serial numbers and similar details are never copied.
• Hardware chooses where models run. Neural Engine, the default on Apple Silicon, runs Quick, Real-ESRGAN and JPEG cleanup on the Neural Engine and Best through Core ML on the GPU, two to three times as fast with far less energy; other models use the GPU. The first job with a model prepares it once, which can take a minute. Apple GPU (Metal) keeps every model on the GPU, and CPU is the slowest.
• Tile, Halo and Precision control how large images are split to fit in memory. Leave them alone unless you run out of memory; Safe memory mode is the simple switch for that.
• Interface text makes the whole window larger.

Updates and privacy

LocalSR checks for a newer beta each time it starts. When one is available, a notice offers Update Now: the update is downloaded, verified against LocalSR’s signing key, installed, and the app restarts. It waits until a running queue has finished. Settings, recipes and models are kept. LocalSR → Check for Updates… checks by hand.

Your photos and videos never leave your Mac. The update check sends an anonymous count (app version, platform and release channel, no identifiers). Turn it off under LocalSR → Check for Updates…, in the Software Update dialog. The privacy page describes every connection the app makes.

Finder and the command line

File → System Integrations… installs an Enhance with LocalSR Quick Action for Finder, so you can right-click photos, videos or folders and send them to LocalSR with the Quick or Best preset. It also adds a localsr-next command for scripts. Move LocalSR to Applications first; both can be removed from the same dialog.

Troubleshooting

• Open or Reveal is missing. Select an item in the Media list that has finished. The buttons belong to the selected item.
• It is slow. Check that Hardware is the Neural Engine or the Apple GPU, try Quick, use a smaller output scale, and close other heavy apps. View → Performance and Diagnostics… runs a short benchmark to compare the GPU and CPU on your Mac.
• It stopped with a memory error. Turn on Safe memory mode or choose a smaller model. Very large images and 4× video need a lot of memory.
• A video will not open. The format probably needs FFmpeg; follow the install command LocalSR shows. If it still fails, report the format.
• The result looks plastic or wrong. Try another model or Photo instead of Illustration, and turn off fixes you do not need. Some damage cannot be recovered.
• The app says the model does not fit. LocalSR compares the model with your free memory; pick a smaller model or close other apps.

Still stuck? Copy diagnostics in View → Performance and Diagnostics… copies a hardware and app summary without file names or media. Paste it into a report on GitHub Issues, or email it; the support page says what else helps.