The method.
How Mica-1 takes a soft photograph and resolves it into a larger, sharper original — every stage on the bench, measured.
Collimate
The photograph is placed on the bench. Its header is parsed — format, dimensions, mass — and checked against the published limits: JPEG, PNG or WebP, up to 15 MB, at least 64×64 px. The bytes are archived to storage and staged for the model. Nothing else is asked of you: no account, no email, no payment.
Expose
Mica-1 performs resolution enhancement: it denoises, deblurs and resynthesizes the photograph at a higher resolution — the digital equivalent of laminating a soft negative between optically flat sheets until the image settles. The bench offers two passes:
- Mica-1 Flash — the single pass. One refinement sweep; keeps the maximum micro-detail. Typical plate: 10–30 seconds.
- Mica-1 Pro — the triple pass. Three chained restoration sweeps (the upstream literally names them restore1, restore2, restore3), each cleaning what the previous one left: less residual noise, a smoother, more printable plate. Typical plate: 20–60 seconds.
Both passes target the same output resolution. Measured on the same 1920×1080 plate, the triple pass produces a calmer file — around 30% lighter at identical dimensions, with visibly less high-frequency noise.
Resolve
The result returns to the bench and is measured: output dimensions, file mass, bench time, pass count. It is archived beside your original — which never leaves the plate it arrived on — and mounted in the comparison instrument for the before/after drag. Results stay available for 7 days, then the storage layer deletes them automatically.
Why the name
Mica is a silicate mineral that splits into optically flat, transparent sheets at the atomic scale — the material of the first optical instruments. The model borrows the idea: layer a soft plate between perfect flats and the original comes back into focus.