[Free & Online] Video Enhancers to Upscale Low-Quality Videos

Even with the advanced digital technology and high-powered cameras of today, most videos are not fit for purpose right out of the gate. There are many factors that can impact a video clip’s quality and visual appeal, including the available light, environmental conditions, and the type of recording device you use. Even big-budget Hollywood productions use a video quality enhancer to make the final movie look and sound perfect. 

If you want to create an exciting video project that looks and sounds pristine, you need to use a video enhancer. Video enhancers allow you to make color corrections, fix imperfections, and improve your clip’s quality. However, choosing the right video enhancer software for your editing skill level and project requirements can be challenging.

This guide looks at the 13 best video enhancers for Windows and Mac PCs. We also provide a step-by-step guide you can follow to enhance your home videos or social media content.

• Top 3 Video Enhancers Snapshot
• What is Video Enhancement?
• How to Choose the Best Video Enhancer
• 13 Best Video Enhancers to Upscale Low-Quality Videos on PC
1. PowerDirector - Best Overall
2. Topaz Labs Video Enhance AI - Best for Slow Motion
3. AVCLabs Video Enhancer AI - Best Facial Recognition
4. Adobe Premiere Pro - Best for Editing Professionals
5. Pixop - Best for Businesses
6. Ashampoo Video Optimizer Pro 2 - Best for Action Camera Footage
7. DVDFab Video Enhancer AI - Best for Beginners
8. Pinnacle Studio – Best for Hobbyists
9. Final Cut Pro - Best for Adjusting Focus
10. Movavi Video Converter - Best for Converting Files
11. Lightworks - Best Audio Enhancer
12. VideoStudio Pro - Best for Instant Movies
13. Vegas Pro - Best for Collaboration
• Best Video Enhancer Comparison Chart
• How to Enhance Video Quality
• Download the Best Video Enhancer for Free
• Video Enhancer FAQ

Top 3 Video Enhancers Snapshot

What is Video Enhancement?

Video enhancement is a collection of editing tasks to enhance video quality and make it more engaging to viewers. In most cases, video enhancements aim to accurately portray subjects’ color and appearance despite suboptimal environmental conditions. For example, a clip you capture early in the morning might have a color imbalance, with most elements appearing in various shades of blue.

The enhancements you need to apply to your clips depend on your project requirements. Generally speaking, you want all the clips within your video to have the same color balance and video resolution. If you have old videos, you will want to reduce grain and sharpen detail. 

Video enhancements let you faithfully reproduce the tones and colors of humans and other elements. As humans, we relate more strongly to flesh tones than other elements, and a color imbalance might make your subjects appear sick. If your clips feature human subjects, enhance video quality to give them a natural, vibrant appearance.

Professional video editors feature unique and AI-based video quality enhancer tools such as sky replacement and auto-adjustments to optimize your clip’s white balance, contrast, and exposure. 

How to Choose the Best Video Enhancer

Choosing the best video quality enhancer depends on several different factors. We outline those factors below to help you choose the right tool for your needs. 

Price

Budget is a big part of any decision when paying for a video quality enhancer. In our list, we have options to cover a range of budgets, so you can find what you need whether your work is paying for it or you are. 

Ease of Use 

We’ve also listed video enhancers in a range of skill levels, from first-time users to editing professionals. Some of our options offer one-click solutions for those who want to enhance their videos but don’t understand things like white balance or frame rate. Others have manual adjustments so you can enhance video quality exactly the way you want. We even have some video quality enhancers that offer both manual and automatic options.   

Video Editing Tools

Some video enhancers are fully-featured video editors, some offer only basic editing tools, and others exist only to upscale video. If you are an influencer, content creator, or filmmaker, it makes sense to get a fully-featured video editor to enhance video quality. 

Features

What are the issues you typically have with your videos? If you often use an action camera to record video on the go, you will need a video enhancer with video stabilization and lens corrections. If you typically film in low light, make sure your video quality enhancer has a denoise feature. If the colors in your videos typically seem off, or you prefer your videos to look more saturated, choose software with color correction and color grading tools. Finally, if you film outside and find background noise an issue, find a program that includes audio enhancements. 

13 Best Video Enhancers to Upscale Low-Quality Videos on PC

1. PowerDirector – Best Overall

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

TechRadar Rating: 4.5/5

Video Enhancement Tools: 5/5

Price: Free
*Premium version available for a 30-day free trial, then $4.33/month

Key Features:

1. Royalty-Free stock library of videos, images, sound effects, and music
2. Color match tool
3. Lens corrections 
4. Motion tracking

The best video-enhancing software on our list is PowerDirector. No matter your video editing experience, you can quickly improve the look and quality of your videos. From basic to advanced color correction and audio editing to powerful AI restoration tools, PowerDirector has all the features you need to create the best-looking and sounding videos.

Fix your video's appearance with lighting adjustments, video denoise, and white balance. Steady shaking handheld or action sports footage with video stabilization. And make your audio crisp and pristine with audio denoise, wind removal, and dereverb.

Once your footage looks and sounds the way you intended it, you can make it even better with effects, color enhancements, titles, and transitions. Or take your videos to the next level by adding an HDR effect or swapping your videos' dull skies for beautiful sunsets and starry vistas with AI Sky Replacement. With PowerDirector's enhancement tools, your footage will look better than anything you could shoot in real life. 

PowerDirector isn't just a video quality enhancer. It has all the video editing tools and effects you need to create engaging videos. Plus, it has compatibility with all standard video formats and lets you upload directly to social media to save time.

Click the link below to download PowerDirector for free today to enhance video quality and add a professional touch to your home videos.

2. Topaz Labs Video Enhance AI - Best for Slow Motion

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

TrustPilot Rating: 4.5/5

Video Enhancement Tools: 4.9/5

Price: 30-day free trial, then $199.99

Key Features:

1. Batch processing
2. Time-aware video enhancer
3. AI-powered deinterlacing
4. Reduces motion artifacts

Video Enhance AI from Topaz Labs is a powerful video quality enhancer that can make very old films look digital. We found this video quality enhancer works wonders with slow-motion effects. While traditional time interpolation causes stuttering, the technicians at Topaz Labs have figured out how to seamlessly generate new frames that are indistinguishable from frames captured in-camera. The result is a natural and stutter-free slow-motion effect. 

Upscale video from SD to HD, and HD to 4K or 8K, without sacrificing quality. Video Enhance AI can remove noise and grain and convert different frame rates while bringing out crisp detail in your shots with minimal flickering. Topaz Labs factors in the issues that arise with denoising motion and use a different technology for restoring videos than the one they use to fix photos. The results are worth the extra effort. 

Topaz Labs Video Enhance AI is #2 on our list because it does not have video editing tools, and its price is too high for most people to afford both this software and a video editor. Therefore, if you frequently use video editing software, or require audio adjustments, we recommend PowerDirector, since it is also a fully-featured video editor. If you simply have a bunch of videos you wish to restore - such as old home movies or DVDs you want to upscale to Blu-ray quality - then Video Enhance AI is a good choice. 

3. AVCLabs Video Enhancer AI - Best Facial Recognition

Image from avclabs.

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

TrustPilot Rating: 4.3/5

Video Enhancement Tools: 4.9/5

Price: 5-day free trial, then $39.95/month, $119/year, or $299.90 for a lifetime license

Key Features:

1. AI Denoise tool
2. Adjustable contrast, saturation, brightness
3. Uses ONNX Runtime for faster processing
4. GPU acceleration

AVCLabs Video Enhancer AI is another AI-powered tool to upscale and enhance video quality. We were impressed with the software’s facial recognition features, which are unique in a video quality enhancer that lacks editing tools. AVCLabs uses face detecting and analyzing to deblur and enhance facial details on one face in a shot or multiple faces, whether moving or standing still. Conversely, the program can also blur faces, in case you need privacy for people in the background or need to blur for aesthetic reasons. This AI Face Detect tool uses motion tracking to blur a fast-moving face in a crowd and stick with it until the end of the shot. 

The automated multi-frame super-resolution will upscale video from SD to HD, and from HD to UHD 4K or 8K. Processed videos remain uncompressed, while unwanted video parts are eliminated for a smoother, crisper, more natural look. 

AVCLabs Video Enhancer AI has automatic tools for beginners to upscale video resolution without any quality loss. Similar to Topaz Labs Video Enhance AI, AVCLabs needs a powerful computer to work and lacks video editing tools and audio enhancements. 

4. Adobe Premiere Pro – Best for Editing Professionals

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

PCMag Rating: 4.5/5

Video Enhancement Tools: 4.5/5

Price: 7-day free trial, then $20.99/month

Key Features:

1. Audio editing tools
2. Motion graphics templates
3. Unlimited multi-cam editing
4. Video review and collaboration tools

No list of video editing products is complete without Adobe Premiere Pro. This video enhancer is a good choice for professionals as it offers almost all video formats, and it is suitable for editing any video content. Filmmakers and editors have used this software to make various popular movies and TV shows, including Mindhunter, Gone Girl, and Deadpool. 

Premiere Pro is rich in tools to enhance video quality. It features a nonlinear editing platform with Lumetri Color Tool, providing unlimited color manipulation. Using this tool, you can adjust your clip’s exposure, contrast, shadows, and white balance, and you can trigger them at any point in the clip using keyframes. The platform’s Sensei AI technology provides optimal adjustments, though you can only apply this AI model to one clip at a time. Premiere Pro is not the best software for sky replacements, but if needed you can replace your clip’s sky using the software’s masking tool.

Premiere Pro has a steep learning curve and even experienced video editors might need some time to learn this software. Although Premiere Pro and PowerDirector are both powerful video quality enhancers and video editors rolled into one, beginner-friendliness and affordability put PowerDirector on top. 

5. Pixop - Best for Businesses

Compatibility: Web Browser

TrustPilot Rating: 4.3/5

Video Enhancement Tools: 4.5/5

Price: Pay per gigapixel for processing, and per gigabyte for storage and downloads

Key Features:

1. Change video frame rate
2. Inject details into degraded video
3. Custom fps boost
4. Film Grain filter

Pixop is an online tool for remastering digital footage up to UHD 8K. Pixop’s REST API feature is designed for businesses with large archives of digital footage. Clients can easily access their Pixop account online to store, organize, and enhance video quality. 

This video enhancer comes with various AI and ML-powered filters, such as Deep Restoration, Denoiser, Super Resolution, Dejitterer, and more. We liked the Face Forward filter, which makes lighting on faces appear uniform, blurs the background for a Portrait effect, and balances color. 

Choose one or multiple filters to upscale video or enhance video quality on your webinars, pre-recorded media appearances, social media posts, etc. 

Pixop has powerful AI tools for any kind of video enhancement. However, it works best on digital videos from the 90s onward, so this is not the software for you if you want to upgrade your classic film collection (for classic film restoration, we recommend Topaz Labs). We also wouldn’t recommend it for personal use, as the pricing model can get very expensive. 

6. Ashampoo Video Optimizer Pro 2 - Best for Action Camera Footage

Compatibility: Windows

Softpedia Rating: 4/5

Video Enhancement Tools: 4.5/5

Price: $69.99

Key Features:

1. Batch processing
2. Slo-mo and time-lapse effects
3. Trim/Rotate/Merge video
4. Tilt/Shift feature

Ashampoo® Video Optimizer Pro 2 is a video quality enhancer and basic editor with both automatic and manual settings to cover every skill level. In our test, we found Ashampoo works best on footage from a GoPro or other action camera. With this software, you can automatically stabilize shaky videos, fix fish-eye distortions caused by a wide-angle lens, and denoise/deflicker videos taken in bad lighting. 

This video quality enhancer comes with 20 presets that are so much more than simple filters. These presets are extensive profiles including vignettes, lighting, saturation, and more. Apply presets with a click of a button or manually fine-tune brightness, shadows, and highlights. It also includes a large preview window to see all of your video enhancements in action. 

Like our #1 choice PowerDirector, Ashampoo® Video Optimizer Pro 2 has both automated and manual solutions to enhance video quality for beginners and professionals. However unlike  PowerDirector, it is not a stand-alone video editor, nor does it have AI-powered tools.   

7. DVDFab Video Enhancer AI - Best for Beginners

Compatibility: Windows

Truely.com Rating: 3.8/5

Video Enhancement Tools: 4.5/5

Price: $59.99/month, $79.99/year, or $99.99 for a lifetime license

Key Features:

1. Losslessly upscale video to 4K
2. Deinterlace old videos
3. Neural network predicts missing pixels
4. Upscale video using CPU or GPU

DVDFab Video Enhancer AI is an AI-based video quality enhancer that is simple enough for anyone to use. No need to tinker with a bunch of settings, simply import your video and choose to enlarge, denoise, or sharpen to automatically enhance video quality. If you are more tech-savvy, you can have more control over the end result by adjusting the optional parameters. 

Use DVDFab Video Enhancer AI on old home movies shot on DV or classic films and enjoy the enhanced video quality on a big screen. The software boosts saturation, corrects color, decreases noise, and sharpens blur, all with the click of a button. 

In short, DVDFab Video Enhancer AI is a quick and easy way for novices to upscale old videos. But while setting up the video enhancer takes no time at all, the processing time is extremely long. In our test, we found this software can take a minimum of 8-30 hours to restore one video. It also requires a powerful PC with plenty of RAM or a compatible graphics card. Using video editing software such as PowerDirector to upscale video may require clicking a few more boxes, but your upscaled video will be ready to view hours earlier.

8. Pinnacle Studio – Best for Hobbyists

Compatibility: Windows

PCMag Rating: 4/5

Video Enhancement Tools: 4/5

Price: 30-day free trial, then $59.99 for Studio and $129.99 for Ultimate

Key Features:

1. Robust title editor
2. Video stabilization
3. Audio enhancements
4. 360-Degree video editing

When looking for a video quality enhancer, Pinnacle Studio is a viable option. We like this software for hobbyists, because it is almost pro-level, but is also easy to use. It’s also relatively affordable, especially if you opt for the Studio version. 

The Ultimate edition’s enhancement adjustments include white balance, exposure, contrast, vibrance, haze correction, and clarity. You can apply auto tone and auto white balance to enhance your clip without spending valuable time experimenting with various adjustments. With Pinnacle Studio’s tone curve tool, you can change your clip’s lighting to achieve a unique effect or make correction and contrast adjustments. The HSL (hue, saturation, and lighting) settings let you adjust the color intensity or brightness of eight colors individually. 

Pinnacle Studio is one of the fastest video editors, making it similar to the number 1 video quality enhancer, PowerDirector. But unlike PowerDirector, Pinnacle Studio doesn’t feature a split-screen preview, so you can only see the enhanced video quality once you move the play head. 

9. Final Cut Pro - Best for Adjusting Focus

Image from BolderVideo.

Compatibility: Mac

TechRadar Rating: 4/5

Video Enhancement Tools: 4/5

Price: 90-day free trial, then $299.99

Key Features:

1. Autosave feature
2. 360-degree editing, graphics, and effects
3. Advanced multi-cam editing
4. HDR video support

Apple’s professional video editing software, Final Cut Pro, can be used to enhance video quality in a number of ways. Our favorite feature is Cinematic Mode, which is a new addition to the software. Manually change the f-stop and shift focus on footage shot on an iPhone 13. You can adjust how blurry or sharp the background appears, and even shift focus from one part of the shot to the other - all in post. 

This video quality enhancer has professional color grading tools including color wheels, color curves, hue/saturation curves, and LUTS. Change the color, hue, luminance, or saturation of just one color using an eyedropper tool, use keyframes to change colors over time, or use the object tracker to apply color changes to a moving object or person. It also comes with audio enhancements such as reducing background noise and optimizing levels. 

Final Cut Pro is a professional video editing suite with multiple tools to enhance video quality. It is not beginner-friendly, nor does it offer automated one-click solutions to upscale video. For an equally feature-rich video editor with AI-powered video enhancements, we recommend PowerDirector. And although they have the same rating, we placed Pinnacle Studio ahead of Final Cut because it is more user-friendly. 

10. Movavi Video Converter - Best for Converting Files

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

TechArrival Rating: 4/5

Video Enhancement Tools: 3.5/5

Price: 7-day free trial, then $64.95

Key Features:

1. Insert subtitles
2. Compress videos with no quality loss
3. Add watermark
4. Trim/Crop/Merge videos

Movavi Video Converter is an AI-powered upscaler, converter, and basic video editor. This video quality enhancer allows you to convert not only video but also music and photos into over 180 formats. Transfer your remastered videos to any device or platform in no time with Movavi’s lightning-fast conversion. We like the Convert Sample feature which acts as a preview window and shows you what your converted video will look like before it has been processed. 

Easily change your video’s resolution with the upscale tool. Simply drag and drop your video into the window, choose your upscaling parameters from a drop-down menu, and click Upscale. You also get a recommended resolution in the drop-down menu to make choosing parameters easy for beginners. You can increase the resolution of your videos by a factor of 2 or 4. And just like the video converter tool, you can preview your new resolution before it is applied. 

Movavi Video Converter also comes with some basic video editing tools such as color adjustment and adding filters. If you need a three-in-one tool to convert, edit, and upscale video, then this is a good choice. However, the software doesn’t excel in any category. For instance, unlike PowerDirector, you would not use Movavi Video Converter as a stand-alone video editor, and there are more powerful video quality enhancers on our list.  

11. Lightworks - Best Audio Enhancer

Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux

TechRadar Rating: 4/5

Video Enhancement Tools: 3/5

Price: Free
*Premium subscriptions available for $9.99/month for Create, and $23.99/month for Pro

Key Features:

1. Background processing
2. Export directly to social media
3. Keyframes
4. Motion graphics

Lightworks is a pro-level video editing software and video quality enhancer with a variety of audio enhancement tools. It has Quick FX audio templates you can easily drag and drop onto your timeline. These incredibly fast audio adjusters combine different effects to enhance dialogue or music. We found Lightworks makes it easy to try out several different templates until your audio sounds just right. 

This video enhancer also has advanced color correction tools with various filters and LUTs to give your video the right look and enhance video quality to HD, Full HD, 2K, or 4K. With Lightworks, you can import a file at any frame rate and it will play at its native shape and resolution. 

Lightworks has a fairly robust free version, however, all of the video enhancer features listed above are only found in the expensive Pro version. This software also has a learning curve for beginners. Our top choice, PowerDirector, offers AI-powered audio enhancements for a fraction of the cost.

12. VideoStudio Pro – Best for Instant Movies

Compatibility: Windows

TechRadar Rating: 3.5/5

Video Enhancement Tools: 3.5/5

Price: $79.99 for Pro and $99.99 for Ultimate

Key Features:

1. Direct social media sharing
2. Lens corrections
3. Multi-Cam editing
4. Animated AR stickers

VideoStudio Pro from Corel is a video enhancer for beginners featuring tools to make instant movies and slideshows from your media. Drag-and-drop an Instant Project Template onto your timeline to automatically recreate a popular video style. Highlight Reel uses AI technology to choose your best clips, while FastFlick instantly creates a slideshow from a given template. 

This software offers several ways to enhance video quality for beginner content creators. Face Effects is one of the most popular features of this software, especially amongst influencers. Using this tool, you can brighten or smooth your subject’s skin using straightforward controls. This video enhancer has color correction tools that you can use to brighten your scenes, add accent colors, or adjust a clip’s hue, saturation, and white balance. The additional auto-tune adjustments are practical and easy to use. Use this video quality enhancer to establish specific moods using color grading tools.

While the video enhancer tools are great, VideoStudio Pro lacks advanced editing tools. However, the interface is intuitive and easy to learn and use, even if you are new to video editing. Both Pinnacle Studio and VideoStudio are made by Corel, however, Pinnacle is more professional, while VideoStudio is more gimmicky. 

13. Vegas Pro – Best for Collaboration

Image from Vegas Pro.

Compatibility: Windows

TechRadar Rating: 3/5

Video Enhancement Tools: 4/5

Price: 30-day free trial, then $19.99/month

Key Features:

1. 3D editing
2. Motion tracking
3. Picture-in-Picture effects
4. Audio editing tools

Vegas Pro from Magix is a popular video enhancer offering excellent online collaboration tools. With the Notes feature, teammates can leave virtual notes linked with timecode on specific areas of the edit. Notes can even be color-coded, with each teammate or version receiving a specific color. 

This video quality enhancer’s color grading panel includes wheels for adjusting dark areas, mid-tones, and bright areas. Using the look-up tables (LUTs), you can apply various color effects to your clips, conveying specific settings or moods. Here, you will also find a curves graph and adjustment sliders for hue, saturation, and lighting. A recent update has seen the addition of an AI-powered tool to upscale video from 720p to 4K. 

Vegas Pro lets you change your clip’s playback speed, but using this feature can be challenging, especially if you are new to the software. While Vegas Pro is a feature-packed video enhancer, it has a relatively unintuitive interface, and it doesn’t feature tutorials for beginners. VideoStudio Pro is more beginner-friendly, which is why it is above Vegas Pro on our list. 

Best Video Enhancer Comparison Chart

How to Enhance Video Quality

This section looks at how to enhance video quality using PowerDirector. 

Download and install PowerDirector on your computer before following these step-by-step guides. 

1. Launch PowerDirector, then select the video files you want to enhance from your local storage and drag them into the Media Library. Then drag the clips to your editing timeline.
2. Click on the clip to select it. Next, click on the Fix / Enhance tool directly above the timeline. The toolbox will appear, replacing your Media Library.

3. Starting from the top, check each box to open its respective video enhancer toolkit. Here you will find tools such as Video Stabilizer, Lens Correction, Video Denoise, Color Adjustment, and more. Experiment with the various adjustment sliders until you are happy with your enhanced video quality.


Click Compare in split preview to see your upscaled video next to the original clip.

4. If you don’t want to make individual enhancements, use color presets to enhance video quality. Close the Fix / Enhance menu and click the FX icon from the left-hand menu.
5. Click Color LUT for filters such as Black and White, Cyberpunk, or Faded Film, or choose Blending Effect for effects such as Grunge and Light Leaks.

For more information on how to enhance video quality with Color LUTS, check out How to Color Correct and Color Grade: The Ultimate Guide.

Download the Best Video Enhancer for Free

Applying video enhancements is critical to creating professional-looking video content that engages audiences. Even if you only post videos for fun on Facebook and YouTube, a video enhancer will help make your footage more enjoyable for friends and family to watch.

If you're looking for the best video enhancer, look no further than PowerDirector. The straightforward video editing software offers professional-level tools to enhance video quality that anyone can use. These video quality enhancements include color and audio correction, restoration tools, and sky replacement. PowerDirector also offers video editing features like motion tracking, 3D editing, and chroma key. It has all the functionality you might need as a video content creator. 

Download it for free by clicking the link below and see how great your videos can look and sound.