Some AI upscaled vintage cigar ads, etc.

[Puros Y Vino]

Messing around with an upscaler tool.  Switched to Linux from Windows for good a few weeks ago. Lots of surprising free software to try out. This one uses the GPU to do the workloads. To my delight, it supported my old AMD RX580 GPU.

With that said, here's a few samples. These were upscaled 3X from their original resolution.  It makes the colors pop and lines sharp. The one drawback is some smaller text gets garbled.  Otherwise, I'm pleased with the results.

1st up. Henry Clay box art.

La Corona Air-Vertical Box (this one was posted on FOH not too long ago. Upscaling made it really sharp)

La Escepcion.  Gorgeous artwork. Used on their pipe tobacco I believe.

Por Larrangaga ad from 1935

Punch ad from the UK. (you can see the text at the bottom got muddled)

A personal fave. Benson & Hedges cabinet ad. Upscaled nicely except for the writing on the ribbon, which TBH was not great on the original. Would love the original print of this to do a hi-res scan.

Bonus Item. Original Cuban Warranty seal.  Really nice upscale, with some minor smudging on text.

[JohnS]

Wow, Frank. They look great!

[El Presidente]

Superb Frank 

[Hoepssa]

They look nice.

[Puros Y Vino]

Here's a a few more.

 

 

 

[SirVantes]

Tremendous! 

Air Vertical Box - up yours, box-press! 🤣

[JohnnyO]

La Escepcion packaging seen in the images was used for pipe tobacco until about 2008 for HdM. They were 1lb packages that were cake pressed, when you opened it up it expanded into a huge ball of leaves. Love the retro ads, especially the Dunhill Sampler and HUp Amigos Seleccion around $11. John