# Contrastive Semi-supervised Learning for Underwater Image Restoration via Reliable Bank

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.09101 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.09101/

## Key facts

- Cited by 71 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 35 of its 68 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Mar 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 35)

- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- [A Simple Framework for Contrastive Learning of Visual Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.05709/) (2020)
- [ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.0575/) (2014)
- [Momentum Contrast for Unsupervised Visual Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.05722/) (2019)
- [Bootstrap your own latent: A new approach to self-supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.07733/) (2020)
- [Non-local Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.07971/) (2017)
- [FixMatch: Simplifying Semi-Supervised Learning with Consistency and Confidence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.07685/) (2020)
- [MUSIQ: Multi-scale Image Quality Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.05997/) (2021)
- [Virtual Adversarial Training: A Regularization Method for Supervised and Semi-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.03976/) (2017)
- [Deformable ConvNets v2: More Deformable, Better Results](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.11168/) (2018)
- [NIMA: Neural Image Assessment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.05424/) (2017)
- [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)
- [From Patches to Pictures (PaQ-2-PiQ): Mapping the Perceptual Space of Picture Quality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.10088/) (2019)
- [Contrastive Learning for Compact Single Image Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.09367/) (2021)
- [Semi-Supervised Semantic Segmentation Using Unreliable Pseudo-Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.03884/) (2022)
- [Fast Underwater Image Enhancement for Improved Visual Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.09766/) (2019)
- [CoMatch: Semi-supervised Learning with Contrastive Graph Regularization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.11183/) (2020)
- [Learning Enriched Features for Fast Image Restoration and Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.01649/) (2022)
- [Underwater Image Enhancement via Medium Transmission-Guided Multi-Color Space Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.13015/) (2021)
- [Attentional Feature Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.14082/) (2020)
- [Perturbed and Strict Mean Teachers for Semi-supervised Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.12903/) (2021)
- [Semi-Supervised Semantic Segmentation via Adaptive Equalization Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.05474/) (2021)
- [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)
- [From Synthetic to Real: Image Dehazing Collaborating with Unlabeled Real Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.02934/) (2021)
- [Underwater Ranker: Learn Which Is Better and How to Be Better](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.06857/) (2022)
- [DW-GAN: A Discrete Wavelet Transform GAN for NonHomogeneous Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.08911/) (2021)
- [Semantically Contrastive Learning for Low-light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.06451/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 71)

- [Wavelet-based Fourier Information Interaction with Frequency Diffusion Adjustment for Underwater Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16845/) (2023)
- [Frequency Decoupling for Motion Magnification via Multi-Level Isomorphic Architecture](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.07347/) (2024)
- [UniUIR: Considering Underwater Image Restoration as An All-in-One Learner](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12981/) (2025)
- [UVEB: A Large-scale Benchmark and Baseline Towards Real-World Underwater Video Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.14542/) (2024)
- [Underwater Image Restoration Through a Prior Guided Hybrid Sense Approach and Extensive Benchmark Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.02701/) (2025)
- [I2-NeRF: Learning Neural Radiance Fields Under Physically-Grounded Media Interactions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.22161/) (2025)
- [A Generalized Physical-knowledge-guided Dynamic Model for Underwater Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.05447/) (2023)
- [WebUOT-1M: Advancing Deep Underwater Object Tracking with A Million-Scale Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.19818/) (2024)
- [Phaseformer: Phase-based Attention Mechanism for Underwater Image Restoration and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.01456/) (2024)
- [Underwater Image Restoration via Polymorphic Large Kernel CNNs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.18459/) (2024)
- [Osmosis: RGBD Diffusion Prior for Underwater Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14837/) (2024)
- [Semi-Supervised Video Desnowing Network via Temporal Decoupling Experts and Distribution-Driven Contrastive Regularization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.07901/) (2024)
- [Towards Real-World Adverse Weather Image Restoration: Enhancing Clearness and Semantics with Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.02101/) (2024)
- [UWFormer: Underwater Image Enhancement via a Semi-Supervised Multi-Scale Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.20210/) (2023)
- [A Comprehensive Survey on Underwater Image Enhancement Based on Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.19684/) (2024)
- [FDCE-Net: Underwater Image Enhancement with Embedding Frequency and Dual Color Encoder](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.17936/) (2024)
- [WaterMamba: Visual State Space Model for Underwater Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.08419/) (2024)
- [HUPE: Heuristic Underwater Perceptual Enhancement with Semantic Collaborative Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.18296/) (2024)
- [AquaticCLIP: A Vision-Language Foundation Model for Underwater Scene Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.01785/) (2025)
- [UIEDP:Underwater Image Enhancement with Diffusion Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.06240/) (2023)
- [PixMamba: Leveraging State Space Models in a Dual-Level Architecture for Underwater Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.08444/) (2024)
- [CoA: Towards Real Image Dehazing via Compression-and-Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.05590/) (2025)
- [WaterFlow: Heuristic Normalizing Flow for Underwater Image Enhancement and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.00931/) (2023)
- [Learning Efficient and Effective Trajectories for Differential Equation-based Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.04811/) (2024)
- [Downstream Task Inspired Underwater Image Enhancement: A Perception-Aware Study from Dataset Construction to Network Design](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.01767/) (2026)
- [QualiTeacher: Quality-Conditioned Pseudo-Labeling for Real-World Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.08030/) (2026)
- [LMT-GP: Combined Latent Mean-Teacher and Gaussian Process for Semi-supervised Low-light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.16235/) (2024)
- [Bayesian Neural Networks for One-to-Many Mapping in Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.14265/) (2025)
- [Generative Refocusing: Flexible Defocus Control from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.16923/) (2025)
- [UnDIVE: Generalized Underwater Video Enhancement Using Generative Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.05886/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Despite the remarkable achievement of recent underwater image restoration techniques, the lack of labeled data has become a major hurdle for further progress. In this work, we propose a mean-teacher based Semi-supervised Underwater Image Restoration (Semi-UIR) framework to incorporate the unlabeled data into network training. However, the naive mean-teacher method suffers from two main problems: (1) The consistency loss used in training might become ineffective when the teacher's prediction is wrong. (2) Using L1 distance may cause the network to overfit wrong labels, resulting in confirmation bias. To address the above problems, we first introduce a reliable bank to store the "best-ever" outputs as pseudo ground truth. To assess the quality of outputs, we conduct an empirical analysis based on the monotonicity property to select the most trustworthy NR-IQA method. Besides, in view of the confirmation bias problem, we incorporate contrastive regularization to prevent the overfitting on wrong labels. Experimental results on both full-reference and non-reference underwater benchmarks demonstrate that our algorithm has obvious improvement over SOTA methods quantitatively and qualitatively. Code has been released at https://github.com/Huang-ShiRui/Semi-UIR.