mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Zero-Reference Deep Curve Estimation for Low-Light Image Enhancement

arXiv 2001.06826 ↗First posted 19 Jan 2020cs.CVcited by 542

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Cited by 42 in Diffusion models, but placed by its own abstract, which didn’t fit.

Abstract (arXiv)

The paper presents a novel method, Zero-Reference Deep Curve Estimation (Zero-DCE), which formulates light enhancement as a task of image-specific curve estimation with a deep network. Our method trains a lightweight deep network, DCE-Net, to estimate pixel-wise and high-order curves for dynamic range adjustment of a given image. The curve estimation is specially designed, considering pixel value range, monotonicity, and differentiability. Zero-DCE is appealing in its relaxed assumption on reference images, i.e., it does not require any paired or unpaired data during training. This is achieved through a set of carefully formulated non-reference loss functions, which implicitly measure the enhancement quality and drive the learning of the network. Our method is efficient as image enhancement can be achieved by an intuitive and simple nonlinear curve mapping. Despite its simplicity, we show that it generalizes well to diverse lighting conditions. Extensive experiments on various benchmarks demonstrate the advantages of our method over state-of-the-art methods qualitatively and quantitatively. Furthermore, the potential benefits of our Zero-DCE to face detection in the dark are discussed. Code and model will be available at https://github.com/Li-Chongyi/Zero-DCE.

Key facts. Cited by 542 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). First posted on arXiv 19 Jan 2020.

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Citing papers per year: 2021: 56; 2022: 68; 2023: 111; 2024: 102; 2025: 104; 2026: 101.

542 papers.

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  1. 2023Retinexformer: One-stage Retinex-based Transformer for Low-light Image Enhancementcited by 231
  2. 2023Generative Diffusion Prior for Unified Image Restoration and Enhancementcited by 199
  3. 2021Learning to Enhance Low-Light Image via Zero-Reference Deep Curve Estimationcited by 192
  4. 2021Low-Light Image Enhancement with Normalizing Flowcited by 185
  5. 2022Ultra-High-Definition Low-Light Image Enhancement: A Benchmark and Transformer-Based Methodcited by 174
  6. 2021Low-Light Image and Video Enhancement Using Deep Learning: A Surveycited by 148
  7. 2021Underwater Image Enhancement via Medium Transmission-Guided Multi-Color Space Embeddingcited by 134
  8. 2023Low-Light Image Enhancement with Wavelet-based Diffusion Modelscited by 127
  9. 2023Iterative Prompt Learning for Unsupervised Backlit Image Enhancementcited by 107
  10. 2021R2RNet: Low-light Image Enhancement via Real-low to Real-normal Networkcited by 106
  11. 2022ShadowDiffusion: When Degradation Prior Meets Diffusion Model for Shadow Removalcited by 103
  12. 2022LEDNet: Joint Low-light Enhancement and Deblurring in the Darkcited by 96
38 more
  1. 2023Implicit Neural Representation for Cooperative Low-light Image Enhancementcited by 92
  2. 2023Global Structure-Aware Diffusion Process for Low-Light Image Enhancementcited by 92
  3. 2024OneRestore: A Universal Restoration Framework for Composite Degradationcited by 92
  4. 2023Embedding Fourier for Ultra-High-Definition Low-Light Image Enhancementcited by 86
  5. 2021Image-Adaptive YOLO for Object Detection in Adverse Weather Conditionscited by 85
  6. 2022You Only Need 90K Parameters to Adapt Light: A Light Weight Transformer for Image Enhancement and Exposure Correctioncited by 81
  7. 2021DANNet: A One-Stage Domain Adaptation Network for Unsupervised Nighttime Semantic Segmentationcited by 80
  8. 2023Low-Light Image Enhancement via Structure Modeling and Guidancecited by 79
  9. 2022Unsupervised Night Image Enhancement: When Layer Decomposition Meets Light-Effects Suppressioncited by 73
  10. 2024LightenDiffusion: Unsupervised Low-Light Image Enhancement with Latent-Retinex Diffusion Modelscited by 71
  11. 2022AdaInt: Learning Adaptive Intervals for 3D Lookup Tables on Real-time Image Enhancementcited by 70
  12. 2023Pyramid Diffusion Models For Low-light Image Enhancementcited by 67
  13. 2021Low-light Image Enhancement via Breaking Down the Darknesscited by 65
  14. 2023FourLLIE: Boosting Low-Light Image Enhancement by Fourier Frequency Informationcited by 64
  15. 2025HVI: A New Color Space for Low-light Image Enhancementcited by 63
  16. 2021Semantic-Guided Zero-Shot Learning for Low-Light Image/Video Enhancementcited by 60
  17. 2022Multitask AET with Orthogonal Tangent Regularity for Dark Object Detectioncited by 59
  18. 2024Retinexmamba: Retinex-based Mamba for Low-light Image Enhancementcited by 59
  19. 2021Regularizing Nighttime Weirdness: Efficient Self-supervised Monocular Depth Estimation in the Darkcited by 58
  20. 2024Zero-Reference Low-Light Enhancement via Physical Quadruple Priorscited by 58
  21. 2023Learning Semantic-Aware Knowledge Guidance for Low-Light Image Enhancementcited by 57
  22. 2024FreqMamba: Viewing Mamba from a Frequency Perspective for Image Derainingcited by 57
  23. 2022SepLUT: Separable Image-adaptive Lookup Tables for Real-time Image Enhancementcited by 50
  24. 2023PUGAN: Physical Model-Guided Underwater Image Enhancement Using GAN with Dual-Discriminatorscited by 49
  25. 2024MambaLLIE: Implicit Retinex-Aware Low Light Enhancement with Global-then-Local State Spacecited by 48
  26. 2024Wave-Mamba: Wavelet State Space Model for Ultra-High-Definition Low-Light Image Enhancementcited by 48
  27. 2024DarkIR: Robust Low-Light Image Restorationcited by 48
  28. 2022DCCF: Deep Comprehensible Color Filter Learning Framework for High-Resolution Image Harmonizationcited by 46
  29. 2023Instance Segmentation in the Darkcited by 46
  30. 2025Degradation-Aware Feature Perturbation for All-in-One Image Restorationcited by 41
  31. 2022Abandoning the Bayer-Filter to See in the Darkcited by 40
  32. 2023Lighting up NeRF via Unsupervised Decomposition and Enhancementcited by 40
  33. 2022CIR-Net: Cross-modality Interaction and Refinement for RGB-D Salient Object Detectioncited by 38
  34. 2022Multi-Bracket High Dynamic Range Imaging with Event Camerascited by 37
  35. 2022Does Thermal Really Always Matter for RGB-T Salient Object Detection?cited by 37
  36. 2021UIEC^2-Net: CNN-based Underwater Image Enhancement Using Two Color Spacecited by 35
  37. 2023Aleth-NeRF: Illumination Adaptive NeRF with Concealing Field Assumptioncited by 35
  38. 2024Light the Night: A Multi-Condition Diffusion Framework for Unpaired Low-Light Enhancement in Autonomous Drivingcited by 35

50 most cited of 542 All 542 (JSON)