Diffusion Models for Image Restoration

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Overview

This field studies how to recover useful images from noise, blur, low resolution, missing regions, and other degradations, including in medical and scientific imaging. Methods range from conditional diffusion and diffusion bridges to plug-and-play posterior sampling, which combines a learned image prior with consistency to the observed measurements. Recent work adapts pretrained models and uses physical, structural, or semantic guidance, while faster latent-space and one-step methods aim to make restoration practical. A central challenge is balancing fidelity to the input against realistic detail generation: strong generative priors can improve perceptual quality but may invent content, and inference cost and clinical validation remain concerns.

Latest papers

CardsList

189 papers17 papers in the last four weeks, up 42% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. Face2Scene: Using Facial Degradation as an Oracle for Diffusion-Based Scene Restoration

    Mar 17, 2026Amirhossein Kazerouni, Maitreya Suin, Tristan Aumentado-Armstrong +6Image RestorationDiffusion Models for Image Restoration

    University of Toronto · Vector Institute · AI Center–Toronto, Samsung Electronics +2

  2. Unified Removal of Raindrops and Reflections: A New Benchmark and A Novel Pipeline

    Mar 17, 2026Xingyu Liu, Zewei He, Yu Chen +4Diffusion Models for Image RestorationImage Enhancement

    Huanjiang Laboratory, Zhuji, China · School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China · Hangzhou Institute of Technology, Xidian University, Hangzhou, China +1

  3. DriveFix: Spatio-Temporally Coherent Driving Scene Restoration

    Mar 17, 2026Heyu Si, Brandon James Denis, Muyang Sun +94D ReconstructionDynamic Novel View Synthesis

    Zhejiang University · Huawei

  4. From Artefact to Insight: Efficient Low-Rank Adaptation of BrushNet for Scanning Probe Microscopy Image Restoration

    Mar 16, 2026Ziwei Wei, Yao Shen, Wanheng Lu +2Image RestorationDiffusion Models for Image Restoration

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, 9 Engineering Drive 1, 117576, Singapore · School of Computer Science and Technology, Tongji University, 4800 Caoan Road, Shanghai, 201804, China · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 3, Singapore, 117583 +1

  5. Comparative Analysis of 3D Convolutional and 2.5D Slice-Conditioned U-Net Architectures for MRI Super-Resolution via Elucidated Diffusion Models

    Mar 15, 2026Hendrik Chiche, Ludovic Corcos, Logan RougeMedical Image Super-ResolutionMedical Image Analysis

    GENCI (Grand Équipement National de Calcul Intensif), France

  6. Seeing Through the PRISM: Compound & Controllable Restoration of Scientific Images

    Mar 14, 2026Rupa Kurinchi-Vendhan, Pratyusha Sharma, Antonio Torralba +1Image RestorationAll-in-One Image Restoration

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  7. QUSR: Quality-Aware and Uncertainty-Guided Image Super-Resolution Diffusion Model

    Mar 10, 2026Junjie Yin, Jiaju Li, Hanfa XingImage Super-ResolutionDiffusion Models for Image Restoration

    School of BeiDou Research Institute, South China Normal University, China

  8. Spectral-Structured Diffusion for Single-Image Rain Removal

    Mar 10, 2026Yucheng Xing, Xin WangImage DerainingImage Enhancement

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA

  9. DECADE: A Temporally-Consistent Unsupervised Diffusion Model for Enhanced Rb-82 Dynamic Cardiac PET Image Denoising

    Mar 8, 2026Yinchi Zhou, Liang Guo, Huidong Xie +14Image DenoisingMedical Imaging

    Department of Biomedical Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA · Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA · Department of Medicine (Cardiology), Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA +2

  10. Disentangled Textual Priors for Diffusion-based Image Super-Resolution

    Mar 8, 2026Lei Jiang, Xin Liu, Xinze Tong +4Image Super-ResolutionDiffusion Models for Image Restoration

    State Key Laboratory for Novel Software Technology, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China

  11. Single Image Super-Resolution via Bivariate `A Trous Wavelet Diffusion

    Mar 7, 2026Maryam Heidari, Nantheera Anantrasirichai, Alin AchimImage Super-ResolutionDiffusion Models for Image Restoration

    Visual Information Laboratory, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

  12. 3D CBCT Artefact Removal Using Perpendicular Score-Based Diffusion Models

    Mar 6, 2026Susanne Schaub, Florentin Bieder, Matheus L. Oliveira +4Cone-Beam CTComputed Tomography

    Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Basel, Allschwil, Switzerland · Piracicaba Dental School, University of Campinas, Piracicaba, Brazil · State Key Laboratory of Oral & Maxillofacial Reconstruction and Regeneration, Key Laboratory of Oral Biomedicine Ministry of Education, Hubei Key Laboratory of Stomatology, School & Hospital of Stomatology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China +2

  13. Longitudinal Lesion Inpainting in Brain MRI via 3D Region Aware Diffusion

    Mar 5, 2026Zahra Karimaghaloo, Dumitru Fetco, Haz-Edine Assemlal +2Diffusion Models for Image RestorationDiffusion Model Guidance

    Clario part of Thermofisher Scientific, Montreal, Canada · Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

  14. Whispering to a Blackbox: Bootstrapping Frozen OCR with Visual Prompts

    Mar 5, 2026Samandar Samandarov, Nazirjon Ismoiljonov, Abdullah Sattorov +1Visual Prompt LearningOptical Character Recognition

    Duke University

  15. MiM-DiT: MoE in MoE with Diffusion Transformers for All-in-One Image Restoration

    Mar 3, 2026Lingshun Kong, Jiawei Zhang, Zhengpeng Duan +6All-in-One Image RestorationDiffusion Models for Image Restoration

    Nanjing University of Science and Technology · Nankai University · Harbin Institute of Technology

  16. FiDeSR: High-Fidelity and Detail-Preserving One-Step Diffusion Super-Resolution

    Mar 3, 2026Aro Kim, Myeongjin Jang, Chaewon Moon +3Image Super-ResolutionDiffusion Models for Image Restoration

    Kyungpook National University · Korea Electronics Technology Institute

  17. MAP-Diff: Multi-Anchor Guided Diffusion for Progressive 3D Whole-Body Low-Dose PET Denoising

    Mar 2, 2026Peiyuan Jing, Chun-Wun Cheng, Liutao Yang +7Image DenoisingDiffusion Models for Image Restoration

    School of Engineering, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, CH · Bioengineering Department and Imperial-X, Imperial College London, UK · DAMTP, University of Cambridge, UK +5

  18. Zero-shot Low-Field MRI Enhancement via Diffusion-Based Adaptive Contrast Transport

    Mar 2, 2026Muyu Liu, Chenhe Du, Xuanyu Tian +5Magnetic Resonance ImagingDiffusion Models for Image Restoration

    School of Information Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China · School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

  19. DiffusionXRay: A Diffusion and GAN-Based Approach for Enhancing Digitally Reconstructed Chest Radiographs

    Mar 2, 2026Aryan Goyal, Ashish Mittal, Pranav Rao +2Image EnhancementMedical Image Synthesis

    Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India · Qure.ai, India

  20. Joint Geometric and Trajectory Consistency Learning for One-Step Real-World Super-Resolution

    Feb 27, 2026Chengyan Deng, Zhangquan Chen, Li Yu +3Image Super-ResolutionConsistency Models

    University of Electronic Science and Technology of China · Tsinghua University · Nanjing University

  21. Polarization Uncertainty-Guided Diffusion Model for Color Polarization Image Demosaicking

    Feb 27, 2026Chenggong Li, Yidong Luo, Junchao Zhang +1Polarimetric ImagingDiffusion Models for Image Restoration

    School of Automation, Central South University, Changsha, China · Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Optic-Electronic Intelligent Measurement and Control, Changsha, China · Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China +1

  22. IRSDE-Despeckle: A Physics-Grounded Diffusion Model for Generalizable Ultrasound Despeckling

    Feb 26, 2026Shuoqi Chen, Yujia Wu, Geoffrey P. LukeUltrasound ImagingImage Denoising

    Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

  23. gQIR: Generative Quanta Image Reconstruction

    Feb 23, 2026Aryan Garg, Sizhuo Ma, Mohit GuptaImage ReconstructionComputational Imaging

    University of Wisconsin-Madison · Snap Inc.

  24. InfScene-SR: Seamless Super-Resolution of Arbitrarily Large Remote-Sensing Scenes via Variance-Preserving Joint Denoising

    Feb 23, 2026Shoukun Sun, Zhe Wang, Xiang Que +2Image Super-ResolutionRemote Sensing Image Super-Resolution

    University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho, USA · NCEAS, UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA · Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China

  25. TPGDiff: Hierarchical Triple-Prior Guided Diffusion for Image Restoration

    Jan 28, 2026Yanjie Tu, Qingsen Yan, Axi Niu +1Geometry-Guided Image RestorationImage Restoration

    School of Computer Science, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China · Shenzhen Research Institute of Northwestern Polytechnical University, Shenzhen, China.

  26. Bridging Information Asymmetry: A Hierarchical Framework for Deterministic Blind Face Restoration

    Jan 27, 2026Zhengjian Yao, Jiakui Hu, Kaiwen Li +5Diffusion Model AlignmentDiffusion Models for Image Restoration

    Biomedical Engineering Department, College of Future Technology, Peking University, Beijing, China

  27. HaineiFRDM: Structure-Preserving Diffusion for Film Restoration under Fast Motion and Diverse Defects

    Dec 31, 2025Rongji Xun, Junjie Yuan, Zhongjie WangDiffusion Models for Image RestorationImage Restoration

    Tongji University, Shanghai, China · Shanghai Film Restoration Laboratory, Shanghai, China

  28. GMODiff: One-Step Gain Map Refinement with Diffusion Priors for HDR Reconstruction

    Dec 18, 2025Tao Hu, Weiyu Zhou, Yanjie Tu +4Diffusion Models for Image RestorationLatent Diffusion Models

    Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China · Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi’an 710055, China · The Shenzhen Research Institute of Northwestern Polytechnical University, Shenzhen 518057, China

  29. DAPS++: Rethinking Diffusion Inverse Problems with Decoupled Posterior Annealing

    Nov 21, 2025Hao Chen, Renzheng Zhang, Scott S. HowardDiffusion Models for Image RestorationBayesian Inverse Problems

    University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA

  30. Iterative Diffusion-Refined Neural Attenuation Fields for Multi-Source Stationary CT Reconstruction: NAF Meets Diffusion Model

    Nov 18, 2025Jiancheng Fang, Shaoyu Wang, Junlin Wang +3Diffusion Models for Image RestorationSparse-View CT Reconstruction

    School of Information Engineering, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330031, China