mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

DR2: Diffusion-based Robust Degradation Remover for Blind Face Restoration

arXiv 2303.06885 ↗First posted 13 Mar 2023cs.CVcited by 79

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Cited by 51 in Diffusion models, but placed by its own abstract, which didn’t fit.

Abstract (arXiv)

Blind face restoration usually synthesizes degraded low-quality data with a pre-defined degradation model for training, while more complex cases could happen in the real world. This gap between the assumed and actual degradation hurts the restoration performance where artifacts are often observed in the output. However, it is expensive and infeasible to include every type of degradation to cover real-world cases in the training data. To tackle this robustness issue, we propose Diffusion-based Robust Degradation Remover (DR2) to first transform the degraded image to a coarse but degradation-invariant prediction, then employ an enhancement module to restore the coarse prediction to a high-quality image. By leveraging a well-performing denoising diffusion probabilistic model, our DR2 diffuses input images to a noisy status where various types of degradation give way to Gaussian noise, and then captures semantic information through iterative denoising steps. As a result, DR2 is robust against common degradation (e.g. blur, resize, noise and compression) and compatible with different designs of enhancement modules. Experiments in various settings show that our framework outperforms state-of-the-art methods on heavily degraded synthetic and real-world datasets.

Key facts. Cited by 79 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 39 of its 52 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 13 Mar 2023.

Builds on

39 of 52 references.

References · 39

  1. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 20,851
  2. 2015U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentationcited by 19,604
  3. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,694
  4. 2018The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metriccited by 11,029
  5. 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesiscited by 8,185
  6. 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,005
  7. 2018A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 5,986
  8. 2022Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 5,603
  9. 2017Neural Discrete Representation Learningcited by 4,650
  10. 2014Deep Learning Face Attributes in the Wildcited by 3,679
  11. 2019Analyzing and Improving the Image Quality of StyleGANcited by 3,580
  12. 2020Taming Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 3,229
27 more
  1. 2017Progressive Growing of GANs for Improved Quality, Stability, and Variationcited by 2,967
  2. 2015Unsupervised Representation Learning with Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 2,048
  3. 2017Enhanced Deep Residual Networks for Single Image Super-Resolutioncited by 1,543
  4. 2021Image Super-Resolution via Iterative Refinementcited by 1,506
  5. 2022RePaint: Inpainting using Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 1,419
  6. 2019Generating Diverse High-Fidelity Images with VQ-VAE-2cited by 1,376
  7. 2016Beyond a Gaussian Denoiser: Residual Learning of Deep CNN for Image Denoisingcited by 1,352
  8. 2021ILVR: Conditioning Method for Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 634
  9. 2017DeblurGAN: Blind Motion Deblurring Using Conditional Adversarial Networkscited by 366
  10. 2020PULSE: Self-Supervised Photo Upsampling via Latent Space Exploration of Generative Modelscited by 358
  11. 2021Towards Real-World Blind Face Restoration with Generative Facial Priorcited by 347
  12. 2015WIDER FACE: A Face Detection Benchmarkcited by 297
  13. 2022Towards Robust Blind Face Restoration with Codebook Lookup Transformercited by 230
  14. 2021GAN Prior Embedded Network for Blind Face Restoration in the Wildcited by 197
  15. 2017FSRNet: End-to-End Learning Face Super-Resolution with Facial Priorscited by 170
  16. 2020GLEAN: Generative Latent Bank for Large-Factor Image Super-Resolutioncited by 158
  17. 2015Compression Artifacts Reduction by a Deep Convolutional Networkcited by 136
  18. 2022VQFR: Blind Face Restoration with Vector-Quantized Dictionary and Parallel Decodercited by 116
  19. 2020Blind Face Restoration via Deep Multi-scale Component Dictionariescited by 106
  20. 2020Progressive Semantic-Aware Style Transformation for Blind Face Restorationcited by 99
  21. 2018Learning Warped Guidance for Blind Face Restorationcited by 87
  22. 2018Deep Semantic Face Deblurringcited by 80
  23. 2019Progressive Face Super-Resolution via Attention to Facial Landmarkcited by 73
  24. 2019Exemplar Guided Face Image Super-Resolution without Facial Landmarkscited by 57
  25. 2020Learning Spatial Attention for Face Super-Resolutioncited by 55
  26. 2016Deep Cascaded Bi-Network for Face Hallucinationcited by 37
  27. 2017Attention-Aware Face Hallucination via Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 33

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2023: 15; 2024: 25; 2025: 25; 2026: 14.

79 papers.

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  1. 2023DiffBIR: Towards Blind Image Restoration with Generative Diffusion Priorcited by 255
  2. 2023Low-Light Image Enhancement with Wavelet-based Diffusion Modelscited by 126
  3. 2023Diffusion Models for Image Restoration and Enhancement: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 108
  4. 2023In-Context Learning Unlocked for Diffusion Modelscited by 103
  5. 2024Diffusion Models in Low-Level Vision: A Surveycited by 73
  6. 2024Diffusion Models, Image Super-Resolution And Everything: A Surveycited by 63
  7. 2024Breaking the Curse of Dimensionality: Diffusion Models Efficiently Learn Low-Dimensional Distributionscited by 53
  8. 2023CRoSS: Diffusion Model Makes Controllable, Robust and Secure Image Steganographycited by 50
  9. 2024Diff-Plugin: Revitalizing Details for Diffusion-based Low-level Taskscited by 47
  10. 2024CyberHost: Taming Audio-driven Avatar Diffusion Model with Region Codebook Attentioncited by 38
  11. 2023Dual Associated Encoder for Face Restorationcited by 23
  12. 2023Towards Real-World Blind Face Restoration with Generative Diffusion Priorcited by 21
38 more
  1. 2024WaveFace: Authentic Face Restoration with Efficient Frequency Recoverycited by 20
  2. 2023Survey on Deep Face Restoration: From Non-blind to Blind and Beyondcited by 18
  3. 2023Beta Diffusioncited by 17
  4. 2024AGLLDiff: Guiding Diffusion Models Towards Unsupervised Training-free Real-world Low-light Image Enhancementcited by 16
  5. 2023Improving the Stability and Efficiency of Diffusion Models for Content Consistent Super-Resolutioncited by 15
  6. 2024PFStorer: Personalized Face Restoration and Super-Resolutioncited by 13
  7. 2024InstantRestore: Single-Step Personalized Face Restoration with Shared-Image Attentioncited by 13
  8. 2026The Second Challenge on Real-World Face Restoration at NTIRE 2026: Methods and Resultscited by 13
  9. 2024Overcoming False Illusions in Real-World Face Restoration with Multi-Modal Guided Diffusion Modelcited by 12
  10. 2024F-Bench: Rethinking Human Preference Evaluation Metrics for Benchmarking Face Generation, Customization, and Restorationcited by 10
  11. 2025NTIRE 2025 Challenge on Real-World Face Restoration: Methods and Resultscited by 10
  12. 2023Restoration by Generation with Constrained Priorscited by 9
  13. 2025InterLCM: Low-Quality Images as Intermediate States of Latent Consistency Models for Effective Blind Face Restorationcited by 9
  14. 2023DiffLLE: Diffusion-guided Domain Calibration for Unsupervised Low-light Image Enhancementcited by 8
  15. 2024Visual Style Prompt Learning Using Diffusion Models for Blind Face Restorationcited by 8
  16. 2025Self-Supervised Selective-Guided Diffusion Model for Old-Photo Face Restorationcited by 8
  17. 20243D Priors-Guided Diffusion for Blind Face Restorationcited by 7
  18. 2024Self-Adaptive Reality-Guided Diffusion for Artifact-Free Super-Resolutioncited by 6
  19. 2024FreeEnhance: Tuning-Free Image Enhancement via Content-Consistent Noising-and-Denoising Processcited by 6
  20. 2023FLAIR: A Conditional Diffusion Framework with Applications to Face Video Restorationcited by 5
  21. 2024Diffusion Prior Interpolation for Flexibility Real-World Face Super-Resolutioncited by 5
  22. 2025DiffusionReward: Enhancing Blind Face Restoration through Reward Feedback Learningcited by 5
  23. 2024Taming Generative Diffusion Prior for Universal Blind Image Restorationcited by 4
  24. 2024AuthFace: Towards Authentic Blind Face Restoration with Face-oriented Generative Diffusion Priorcited by 4
  25. 2025Reconciling Stochastic and Deterministic Strategies for Zero-shot Image Restoration using Diffusion Model in Dualcited by 4
  26. 2025TD-BFR: Truncated Diffusion Model for Efficient Blind Face Restorationcited by 4
  27. 2025MoFRR: Mixture of Diffusion Models for Face Retouching Restorationcited by 4
  28. 2023Personalized Restoration via Dual-Pivot Tuningcited by 3
  29. 2025INDIGO+: A Unified INN-Guided Probabilistic Diffusion Algorithm for Blind and Non-Blind Image Restorationcited by 3
  30. 2025IQPFR: An Image Quality Prior for Blind Face Restoration and Beyondcited by 3
  31. 2025Robust ID-Specific Face Restoration via Alignment Learningcited by 3
  32. 2026Bridging Information Asymmetry: A Hierarchical Framework for Deterministic Blind Face Restorationcited by 3
  33. 2026Beyond Ground-Truth: Leveraging Image Quality Priors for Real-World Image Restorationcited by 3
  34. 2024Towards Unsupervised Blind Face Restoration using Diffusion Priorcited by 2
  35. 2024LLV-FSR: Exploiting Large Language-Vision Prior for Face Super-resolutioncited by 2
  36. 2025DynFaceRestore: Balancing Fidelity and Quality in Diffusion-Guided Blind Face Restoration with Dynamic Blur-Level Mapping and Guidancecited by 2
  37. 2025Unlocking the Potential of Diffusion Priors in Blind Face Restorationcited by 2
  38. 2023RS-Corrector: Correcting the Racial Stereotypes in Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 1

50 most cited of 79 All 79 (JSON)

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2024DR-BFR: Degradation Representation with Diffusion Models for Blind Face Restoration
  2. 2023DiffBFR: Bootstrapping Diffusion Model Towards Blind Face Restoration
  3. 2026Face2Scene: Using Facial Degradation as an Oracle for Diffusion-Based Scene Restoration
  4. 2022DifFace: Blind Face Restoration with Diffused Error Contraction
  5. 2023Towards Authentic Face Restoration with Iterative Diffusion Models and Beyond
  6. 2026Stop Denoising Your Blurs
  7. 2024Efficient Diffusion Model for Image Restoration by Residual Shifting
  8. 2024CLR-Face: Conditional Latent Refinement for Blind Face Restoration Using Score-Based Diffusion Models