Feelings are generous after an hour of generating. A frame that thrilled you at midnight can look ordinary at breakfast, and credits spent on finishing cannot be unspent. So every frame at this desk gets the same two-minute routine before a single finishing credit is considered, and the routine is run against the key card, not against mood.
First minute: identity. Hold the frame beside the card and check the five lines in order — age read, hair, build, face, signature. Any line that fails ends the judging; the frame is a cull, however pretty it is. Second minute: craft. Hands, edges, light direction, background clutter. A frame that passes identity but fails craft goes to the editor for one precise repair, not to the upscaler.
Only frames that pass both minutes earn finishing money, and they earn it in order: repair first, swap second, upscale last. The upscaler is a delivery tool, not a rescue tool — it raises resolution, not fidelity.
Two minutes feels slow on a good night. It is still cheaper than one premium regeneration, and it is the whole reason a series from this desk reads as one woman from the first frame to the last.