# Blind Image Super-Resolution: A Survey and Beyond

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.03055 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.03055/

## Key facts

- Cited by 93 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 52 of its 105 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 7 Jul 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 52)

- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Density estimation using Real NVP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1605.08803/) (2016)
- [Arbitrary Style Transfer in Real-time with Adaptive Instance Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06868/) (2017)
- [Photo-Realistic Single Image Super-Resolution Using a Generative Adversarial Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.04802/) (2016)
- [Enhanced Deep Residual Networks for Single Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.02921/) (2017)
- [Image Super-Resolution Using Very Deep Residual Channel Attention Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.02758/) (2018)
- [ESRGAN: Enhanced Super-Resolution Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.00219/) (2018)
- [Real-Time Single Image and Video Super-Resolution Using an Efficient Sub-Pixel Convolutional Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.05158/) (2016)
- [Deep Image Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10925/) (2017)
- [NICE: Non-linear Independent Components Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1410.8516/) (2014)
- [Accurate Image Super-Resolution Using Very Deep Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.04587/) (2015)
- [Unpaired Image-to-Image Translation using Cycle-Consistent Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.10593/) (2017)
- [Real-world Anomaly Detection in Surveillance Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.04264/) (2018)
- [Designing a Practical Degradation Model for Deep Blind Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14006/) (2021)
- [Learning Deep CNN Denoiser Prior for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.03264/) (2017)
- [Toward Real-World Single Image Super-Resolution: A New Benchmark and A New Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.00523/) (2019)
- [Accelerating the Super-Resolution Convolutional Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.00367/) (2016)
- [Recovering Realistic Texture in Image Super-resolution by Deep Spatial Feature Transform](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.02815/) (2018)
- [Deeply-Recursive Convolutional Network for Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.04491/) (2015)
- ["Zero-Shot" Super-Resolution using Deep Internal Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.06087/) (2017)
- [Deep Unfolding Network for Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.10428/) (2020)
- [Plug-and-Play ADMM for Image Restoration: Fixed Point Convergence and Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1605.01710/) (2016)
- [Component Divide-and-Conquer for Real-World Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.01928/) (2020)
- [Learning a Single Convolutional Super-Resolution Network for Multiple Degradations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.06116/) (2017)
- [Blind Super-Resolution With Iterative Kernel Correction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.03377/) (2019)
- [EnhanceNet: Single Image Super-Resolution Through Automated Texture Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.07919/) (2016)
- [Unsupervised Degradation Representation Learning for Blind Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00416/) (2021)
- [Blind Super-Resolution Kernel Estimation using an Internal-GAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.06581/) (2019)
- [FSRNet: End-to-End Learning Face Super-Resolution with Facial Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10703/) (2017)
- [DSLR-Quality Photos on Mobile Devices with Deep Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.02470/) (2017)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 93)

- [Real-ESRGAN: Training Real-World Blind Super-Resolution with Pure Synthetic Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.10833/) (2021)
- [Scaling Up to Excellence: Practicing Model Scaling for Photo-Realistic Image Restoration In the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.13627/) (2024)
- [DiffBIR: Towards Blind Image Restoration with Generative Diffusion Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.15070/) (2023)
- [Efficient and Degradation-Adaptive Network for Real-World Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.14216/) (2022)
- [CoSeR: Bridging Image and Language for Cognitive Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16512/) (2023)
- [Diffusion Models, Image Super-Resolution And Everything: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.00736/) (2024)
- [A Survey on All-in-One Image Restoration: Taxonomy, Evaluation and Future Trends](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.15067/) (2024)
- [Masked Image Training for Generalizable Deep Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.13132/) (2023)
- [Towards Realistic Data Generation for Real-World Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.07255/) (2024)
- [Pixel to Gaussian: Ultra-Fast Continuous Super-Resolution with 2D Gaussian Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.06617/) (2025)
- [N-Gram in Swin Transformers for Efficient Lightweight Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.11436/) (2022)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models for Robust Image Super-Resolution in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.07864/) (2023)
- [Reflash Dropout in Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.12089/) (2021)
- [NTIRE 2024 Challenge on Image Super-Resolution (x4): Methods and Results](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.09790/) (2024)
- [Efficient Real-world Image Super-Resolution Via Adaptive Directional Gradient Convolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.07023/) (2024)
- [MM-RealSR: Metric Learning based Interactive Modulation for Real-World Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.05065/) (2022)
- [Learning the Degradation Distribution for Blind Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.04962/) (2022)
- [Unveiling Hidden Details: A RAW Data-Enhanced Paradigm for Real-World Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.10798/) (2024)
- [The Evolution of Dataset Distillation: Toward Scalable and Generalizable Solutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.05673/) (2025)
- [You Only Need One Step: Fast Super-Resolution with Stable Diffusion via Scale Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.17258/) (2024)
- [AnimeSR: Learning Real-World Super-Resolution Models for Animation Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.07038/) (2022)
- [Image Super-Resolution with Text Prompt Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.14282/) (2023)
- [Hitchhiker's Guide to Super-Resolution: Introduction and Recent Advances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.13131/) (2022)
- [Crafting Training Degradation Distribution for the Accuracy-Generalization Trade-off in Real-World Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.18107/) (2023)
- [Discovering Distinctive "Semantics" in Super-Resolution Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.00406/) (2021)
- [A Systematic Survey of Deep Learning-based Single-Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.14335/) (2021)
- [Low-Res Leads the Way: Improving Generalization for Super-Resolution by Self-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.02601/) (2024)
- [Unleashing the Power of One-Step Diffusion based Image Super-Resolution via a Large-Scale Diffusion Discriminator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.04224/) (2024)
- [Evaluating the Generalization Ability of Super-Resolution Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.07019/) (2022)
- [Efficient Test-Time Adaptation for Super-Resolution with Second-Order Degradation and Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.19011/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Blind image super-resolution (SR), aiming to super-resolve low-resolution images with unknown degradation, has attracted increasing attention due to its significance in promoting real-world applications. Many novel and effective solutions have been proposed recently, especially with the powerful deep learning techniques. Despite years of efforts, it still remains as a challenging research problem. This paper serves as a systematic review on recent progress in blind image SR, and proposes a taxonomy to categorize existing methods into three different classes according to their ways of degradation modelling and the data used for solving the SR model. This taxonomy helps summarize and distinguish among existing methods. We hope to provide insights into current research states, as well as to reveal novel research directions worth exploring. In addition, we make a summary on commonly used datasets and previous competitions related to blind image SR. Last but not least, a comparison among different methods is provided with detailed analysis on their merits and demerits using both synthetic and real testing images.