# Single Underwater Image Enhancement Using an Analysis-Synthesis Network

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.09023 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.09023/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 37 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 20 Aug 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [Squeeze-and-Excitation Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.01507/) (2017)
- [Instance Normalization: The Missing Ingredient for Fast Stylization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.08022/) (2016)
- [Recovering Realistic Texture in Image Super-resolution by Deep Spatial Feature Transform](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.02815/) (2018)
- [An Underwater Image Enhancement Benchmark Dataset and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.05495/) (2019)
- [Fast Underwater Image Enhancement for Improved Visual Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.09766/) (2019)
- [Underwater Image Enhancement via Medium Transmission-Guided Multi-Color Space Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.13015/) (2021)
- [WaterGAN: Unsupervised Generative Network to Enable Real-time Color Correction of Monocular Underwater Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.07392/) (2017)
- [Enhancing Underwater Imagery using Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.04011/) (2018)
- [Underwater Single Image Color Restoration Using Haze-Lines and a New Quantitative Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.01343/) (2018)
- [Real-world Underwater Enhancement: Challenges, Benchmarks, and Solutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.05320/) (2019)
- [Emerging from Water: Underwater Image Color Correction Based on Weakly Supervised Color Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.07084/) (2017)
- [Learning Converged Propagations with Deep Prior Ensemble for Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04012/) (2018)
- [Towards a Generic Diver-Following Algorithm: Balancing Robustness and Efficiency in Deep Visual Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.06849/) (2018)
- [Jointly Adversarial Network to Wavelength Compensation and Dehazing of Underwater Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.05595/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [UIERL: Internal-External Representation Learning Network for Underwater Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.08344/) (2023)
- [DPF-Net: Physical Imaging Model Embedded Data-Driven Underwater Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.12470/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Most deep models for underwater image enhancement resort to training on synthetic datasets based on underwater image formation models. Although promising performances have been achieved, they are still limited by two problems: (1) existing underwater image synthesis models have an intrinsic limitation, in which the homogeneous ambient light is usually randomly generated and many important dependencies are ignored, and thus the synthesized training data cannot adequately express characteristics of real underwater environments; (2) most of deep models disregard lots of favorable underwater priors and heavily rely on training data, which extensively limits their application ranges. To address these limitations, a new underwater synthetic dataset is first established, in which a revised ambient light synthesis equation is embedded. The revised equation explicitly defines the complex mathematical relationship among intensity values of the ambient light in RGB channels and many dependencies such as surface-object depth, water types, etc, which helps to better simulate real underwater scene appearances. Secondly, a unified framework is proposed, named ANA-SYN, which can effectively enhance underwater images under collaborations of priors (underwater domain knowledge) and data information (underwater distortion distribution). The proposed framework includes an analysis network and a synthesis network, one for priors exploration and another for priors integration. To exploit more accurate priors, the significance of each prior for the input image is explored in the analysis network and an adaptive weighting module is designed to dynamically recalibrate them. Meanwhile, a novel prior guidance module is introduced in the synthesis network, which effectively aggregates the prior and data features and thus provides better hybrid information to perform the more reasonable image enhancement.