One interesting feature that the Edge team is experimenting with this summer is called “SuperRes” or “Enhance Images.” This feature allows Microsoft Edge to use a Microsoft-built AI/ML service to enhance the quality of images shown within the browser. You can learn more about how the images are enhanced (and see some examples) in the Turing SuperRes blog post.
Currently only a tiny fraction of Stable channel users and much larger fraction of Dev/Canary channel users have the feature enabled by field trial flags. If the feature is enabled, you’ll have an option to enable/disable it inside edge://flags:
…and users of the latest builds will also see a “HD” icon appear in the omnibox. When clicked, it opens a configuration balloon that allows you to control the feature:
As seen in the blog post, this feature can meaningfully enhance the quality of many photographs, but the model is not yet perfect. One limitation is that it tends not to work as well for PNG screenshots, which sometimes get pink fuzzies:
… and today I filed a bug because it seems like the feature does not handle ICCv4 color profiles correctly.
If you encounter failed enhancements like this, please report them to the Edge team using the … > Help and Feedback > Send Feedback tool so the team can help improve the model.
On-the-Wire
Using Fiddler, you can see the image enhancement requests that flow out to the Turing Service in the cloud:
Inspecting each response from the server takes a little bit of effort because the response image is encapsulated within a Protocol Buffer wrapper:
Because of the wrapper, Fiddler’s ImageView will not be able to render the image by default:
Fortunately, the response image is near the top of the buffer, so you can simply focus the Web Session, hit F2 to unlock it for editing, and use the HexView inspector to delete the prefix bytes:
…then hit F2 to commit the changes to the response. You can then use the ImageView inspector to render the enhanced image, skipping over the remainder of the bytes in the protocol buffer (see the “bytes after final chunk” warning on the left):
Stay sharp out there!
-Eric
Impatient optimist. Dad. Author/speaker. Created Fiddler & SlickRun. PM @ MSFT '01-'12, and '18-, working on Office, IE, Edge, and Web Protection. My words are my own, I do not speak for any other entity. View more posts