Un-pixelate Photos – Here are the Detailed Processes in Photoshop and the Best Alternative
Last Updated on September 20, 2025 by Peter Wood
When you need a high-definition image, you should fix photo fuzziness, blurry, or pixelate beforehand. Image pixelation is common for non-vector or raster-based images. How to unpixelate an image? Photoshop is the initial choice you will consider, which provides the advanced algorithm to enlarge photos and remove noises. But is there an easy alternative to depixelate the images? Just learn more about the processes and find a suitable one according to your requirements.
Part 1: What Causes Image Pixelation
Why do you need to depixelate an image? Beforehand, you should know the definition of image pixelation, which are the small single-colored square display elements that are visible. Just zoom in and enlarge to view the image or browse the file on a low-resolution screen, and you can find the image pixelation. Here are more reasons you should know.
1. Images that are cropped several times and enlarged will cause a gradual decline in image sharpness, resulting in a heavily pixelated image.
2. Shooting and scanning problems. If an image is captured with poor camera settings or scanner quality, it can easily lead to severe image pixelation.
3. Personal settings, image pixelation ensures personal privacy, and often people use the image pixelation feature to ensure personal privacy.
Part 2: How to De-pixelate an Image in Photoshop
Photoshop is a professional image editor, which enables you to de-pixelate photos easily. It enables you to smooth out the edges and enhance the quality with different features, including De-speckle and Gaussian Blur. Moreover, you can also enhance the quality to un-pixelate the photos.
Step 1: Launch Photoshop on your computer and click the Open option from the File menu to upload the pixelated image into the program. Moreover, you can also drag-n-drop the desired file directly. Before editing the image, you can duplicate a layer.
Step 2: Click the desired layer you want to edit and go to the Filter menu to select the desired option, such as the Despeckle option from Noise. It will remove the speckle and fix the pixelated image accordingly. Just repeat the filter several times to find whether it works.
Step 3: Go to the Filter menu again and click the Gaussian Blur option from Blur. Move the slider to smooth the edge of the pixelation image before clicking the OK button. It not only un-pixelates the image but also brings out more photo fuzziness.
Step 4: To fix the blurriness of the photo, you can choose the Sharpen option from Filter. Choose the Unsharp Mask option and adjust the 3 sliders for the Amount option, the Radius option, and the Threshold option to the optimal effect to de-pixelate the image.
Step 5: If you are still not satisfied with the effect, you can go to the File menu and choose the Export As option from Export. After that, you can enter the desired width or height, or simply double the scale of the image to upscale the resolution of the image.
Part 3: How to Un-pixelate an Image without Photoshop
Is there a Photoshop alternative to un-pixelate images easily? Whether you have difficulty choosing the desired filter to enhance the quality or are not satisfied with the output file, WidsMob AI Retoucher is the all-in-one solution to fix the pixelated image. It not only provides the basic features, such as sharpness, chrominance, and luminance but also enables you to enhance the photos via AI retouch features.
1. Provide 3 different AI retouching filters to fix pixelate images automatically.
2. De-pixelate images manually with sharpness, chrominance, and luminance.
3. Combine both AI mode and manual mode to enhance the image quality.
4. Preview the instant effect with Before and After to check the comparison.
Step 1: Once you have installed WidsMob AI Retoucher, you can launch the program and click the Import button to upload the pixelation image. Moreover, you can drag-n-drop the desired image into the program.
Step 2: Double-click the image to get into the editing window and choose the Adjust menu in the left bar. You can choose the Noise Reduction option to de-pixelate the image automatically with an AI algorithm.
Step 3: Click the Adjust menu and adjust the different parameters, including Sharpness, Chrominance, Luminance, and others. Turn on the Before and After mode to view the instant effect directly.
Step 4: Besides the above filters, you can also tweak the other parameters to un-pixelate the photos and enhance the quality. If you are satisfied with the output, you can click the Save As button to save the file.
Note: When you need to upscale the resolution of the pixelation image, you can use WidsMob ImageConvert to add more pixels to the file. It enables you to use the AI Image Upscale option to get up to 4X with the original file size easily.
Conclusion
When the photos are blurry or low in resolution, here are 2 workable methods for de-pixelated images. Photoshop is the most popular method to remove the image noise, enhance the sharpness, and upscale the resolution. But there are too many filters you should choose. If you need to have a one-stop solution to un-pixelate the image easily, WidsMob AI Retouch provides both AI algorithms and manual adjustments to get the optimal effect.