mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

PAIR-Diffusion: A Comprehensive Multimodal Object-Level Image Editor

arXiv 2303.17546 ↗First posted 30 Mar 2023cs.CV cs.AI cs.LGcited by 17

On the map: Diffusion models → Image generation, text-to-image and editing

Abstract (arXiv)

Generative image editing has recently witnessed extremely fast-paced growth. Some works use high-level conditioning such as text, while others use low-level conditioning. Nevertheless, most of them lack fine-grained control over the properties of the different objects present in the image, i.e. object-level image editing. In this work, we tackle the task by perceiving the images as an amalgamation of various objects and aim to control the properties of each object in a fine-grained manner. Out of these properties, we identify structure and appearance as the most intuitive to understand and useful for editing purposes. We propose PAIR Diffusion, a generic framework that can enable a diffusion model to control the structure and appearance properties of each object in the image. We show that having control over the properties of each object in an image leads to comprehensive editing capabilities. Our framework allows for various object-level editing operations on real images such as reference image-based appearance editing, free-form shape editing, adding objects, and variations. Thanks to our design, we do not require any inversion step. Additionally, we propose multimodal classifier-free guidance which enables editing images using both reference images and text when using our approach with foundational diffusion models. We validate the above claims by extensively evaluating our framework on both unconditional and foundational diffusion models. Please refer to https://vidit98.github.io/publication/conference-paper/pair_diff.html for code and model release.

Key facts. Cited by 17 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Image generation, text-to-image and editing, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 53 of its 63 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 30 Mar 2023.

Builds on

53 of 63 references.

Closest ancestors · 18

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2023Localizing Object-level Shape Variations with Text-to-Image Diffusion Models20 Mar
  2. 2023Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models10 Feb
  3. 2022Training-Free Structured Diffusion Guidance for Compositional Text-to-Image Synthesis9 Dec
  4. 2022Unified Discrete Diffusion for Simultaneous Vision-Language Generation27 Nov
  5. 2022SpaText: Spatio-Textual Representation for Controllable Image Generation25 Nov
  6. 2022Sketch-Guided Text-to-Image Diffusion Models24 Nov
  7. 2022Paint by Example: Exemplar-based Image Editing with Diffusion Models23 Nov
  8. 2022InstructPix2Pix: Learning to Follow Image Editing Instructions17 Nov
  9. 2022Null-text Inversion for Editing Real Images using Guided Diffusion Models17 Nov
  10. 2022DiffusionDet: Diffusion Model for Object Detection17 Nov
  11. 2022Versatile Diffusion: Text, Images and Variations All in One Diffusion Model15 Nov
  12. 2022MagicMix: Semantic Mixing with Diffusion Models28 Oct
6 more
  1. 2022DiffEdit: Diffusion-based semantic image editing with mask guidance20 Oct
  2. 2022DreamBooth: Fine Tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Subject-Driven Generation25 Aug
  3. 2022Compositional Visual Generation with Composable Diffusion Models3 Jun
  4. 2022Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding23 May
  5. 2022Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents13 Apr
  6. 2021GLIDE: Towards Photorealistic Image Generation and Editing with Text-Guided Diffusion Models20 Dec

Other references · 35

  1. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 20,851
  2. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,694
  3. 2014Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Contextcited by 17,498
  4. 2014Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognitioncited by 15,267
  5. 2018The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metriccited by 11,029
  6. 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 8,964
  7. 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesiscited by 8,185
  8. 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,005
  9. 2018A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 5,986
  10. 2022Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidancecited by 5,717
  11. 2019Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distributioncited by 4,067
  12. 2022DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusioncited by 3,006
23 more
  1. 2017Progressive Growing of GANs for Improved Quality, Stability, and Variationcited by 2,967
  2. 2022Prompt-to-Prompt Image Editing with Cross Attention Controlcited by 2,409
  3. 2021Masked-attention Mask Transformer for Universal Image Segmentationcited by 2,338
  4. 2013Visualizing and Understanding Convolutional Networkscited by 2,278
  5. 2015LSUN: Construction of a Large-scale Image Dataset using Deep Learning with Humans in the Loopcited by 1,350
  6. 2022Diffusion-LM Improves Controllable Text Generationcited by 1,006
  7. 2022Plug-and-Play Diffusion Features for Text-Driven Image-to-Image Translationcited by 897
  8. 2016COCO-Stuff: Thing and Stuff Classes in Contextcited by 858
  9. 2021Do Vision Transformers See Like Convolutional Neural Networks?cited by 671
  10. 2021Score-based Generative Modeling in Latent Spacecited by 634
  11. 2023Zero-shot Image-to-Image Translationcited by 503
  12. 2015Understanding Neural Networks Through Deep Visualizationcited by 332
  13. 2019SEAN: Image Synthesis with Semantic Region-Adaptive Normalizationcited by 253
  14. 2023Text-To-4D Dynamic Scene Generationcited by 204
  15. 2023NerfDiff: Single-image View Synthesis with NeRF-guided Distillation from 3D-aware Diffusioncited by 179
  16. 2021EditGAN: High-Precision Semantic Image Editingcited by 156
  17. 2021Symbolic Music Generation with Diffusion Modelscited by 152
  18. 2022NeuralLift-360: Lifting An In-the-wild 2D Photo to A 3D Object with 360deg Viewscited by 148
  19. 2019AutoGAN: Neural Architecture Search for Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 94
  20. 2022SceneComposer: Any-Level Semantic Image Synthesiscited by 43
  21. 2022ObjectStitch: Generative Object Compositingcited by 36
  22. 2022BlobGAN: Spatially Disentangled Scene Representationscited by 35
  23. 2022End-to-End Visual Editing with a Generatively Pre-Trained Artistcited by 7

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2023: 2; 2024: 4; 2025: 8; 2026: 3.

17 papers.

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  1. 2024OpenBias: Open-set Bias Detection in Text-to-Image Generative Modelscited by 61
  2. 2024LLMs Meet Multimodal Generation and Editing: A Surveycited by 35
  3. 2025Image Editing As Programs with Diffusion Modelscited by 10
  4. 2025LOTS of Fashion! Multi-Conditioning for Image Generation via Sketch-Text Pairingcited by 7
  5. 2025Beyond Editing Pairs: Fine-Grained Instructional Image Editing via Multi-Scale Learnable Regionscited by 6
  6. 2025IMG: Calibrating Diffusion Models via Implicit Multimodal Guidancecited by 3
  7. 2024GradBias: Unveiling Word Influence on Bias in Text-to-Image Generative Modelscited by 2
  8. 2025AGSwap: Overcoming Category Boundaries in Object Fusion via Adaptive Group Swappingcited by 2
  9. 2023DiffBlender: Composable and Versatile Multimodal Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 1
  10. 2023Diverse Semantic Image Editing with Style Codescited by 1
  11. 2025Energy-Guided Optimization for Personalized Image Editing with Pretrained Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 1
  12. 2026Shifting the Breaking Point of Flow Matching for Multi-Instance Editingcited by 1
5 more
  1. 2024FilterPrompt: A Simple yet Efficient Approach to Guide Image Appearance Transfer in Diffusion Modelscited by 0
  2. 2025RichControl: Structure- and Appearance-Rich Training-Free Spatial Control for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 0
  3. 2025Region in Context: Text-condition Image editing with Human-like semantic reasoningcited by 0
  4. 2026Multi-Level Conditioning by Pairing Localized Text and Sketch for Fashion Image Generationcited by 0
  5. 2026When Text-to-Image Helps Editing: The Effects of Conditioning During Denoisingcited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2024Diffusion Model-Based Image Editing: A Survey
  2. 2024LoMOE: Localized Multi-Object Editing via Multi-Diffusion
  3. 2025Image Editing with Diffusion Models: A Survey
  4. 2026Editing on the Generative Manifold: A Theoretical and Empirical Study of General Diffusion-Based Image Editing Trade-offs
  5. 2025Edit2Perceive: Image Editing Diffusion Models Are Strong Dense Perceivers
  6. 2024FunEditor: Achieving Complex Image Edits via Function Aggregation with Diffusion Models
  7. 2024Towards Small Object Editing: A Benchmark Dataset and A Training-Free Approach
  8. 2023Diffusion Handles: Enabling 3D Edits for Diffusion Models by Lifting Activations to 3D