# FreeDrag: Feature Dragging for Reliable Point-based Image Editing

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.04684 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.04684/

## Key facts

- Cited by 29 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 49 of its 53 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Jul 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 49)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06125/) (2022)
- [Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11487/) (2022)
- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.00667/) (2022)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [Image-to-Image Translation with Conditional Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.07004/) (2016)
- [Analyzing and Improving the Image Quality of StyleGAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04958/) (2019)
- [InstructPix2Pix: Learning to Follow Image Editing Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09800/) (2022)
- [Prompt-to-Prompt Image Editing with Cross Attention Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.01626/) (2022)
- [SDEdit: Guided Image Synthesis and Editing with Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.01073/) (2021)
- [RePaint: Inpainting using Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.09865/) (2022)
- [Semantic Image Synthesis with Spatially-Adaptive Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.07291/) (2019)
- [Alias-Free Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12423/) (2021)
- [Null-text Inversion for Editing Real Images using Guided Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09794/) (2022)
- [Imagic: Text-Based Real Image Editing with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.09276/) (2022)
- [Interpreting the Latent Space of GANs for Semantic Face Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.10786/) (2019)
- [Image2StyleGAN: How to Embed Images Into the StyleGAN Latent Space?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.03189/) (2019)
- [DiffusionCLIP: Text-Guided Diffusion Models for Robust Image Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.02711/) (2021)
- [Contrastive Learning for Unpaired Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.15651/) (2020)
- [Generative Adversarial Networks: An Overview](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.07035/) (2017)
- [Zero-shot Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.03027/) (2023)
- [Paint by Example: Exemplar-based Image Editing with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13227/) (2022)
- [Emergent Correspondence from Image Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03881/) (2023)
- [Blended Latent Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.02779/) (2022)
- [Pivotal Tuning for Latent-based Editing of Real Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05744/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [Diffusion Model-Based Video Editing: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.07111/) (2024)
- [GeoDiffuser: Geometry-Based Image Editing with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.14403/) (2024)
- [DreamOmni: Unified Image Generation and Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.17098/) (2024)
- [DragFlow: Unleashing DiT Priors with Region Based Supervision for Drag Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.02253/) (2025)
- [Mini-DALLE3: Interactive Text to Image by Prompting Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.07653/) (2023)
- [Drag-A-Video: Non-rigid Video Editing with Point-based Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02936/) (2023)
- [FastDrag: Manipulate Anything in One Step](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.15769/) (2024)
- [DragText: Rethinking Text Embedding in Point-based Image Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17843/) (2024)
- [MvDrag3D: Drag-based Creative 3D Editing via Multi-view Generation-Reconstruction Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.16272/) (2024)
- [Replication in Visual Diffusion Models: A Survey and Outlook](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.00001/) (2024)
- [DragLoRA: Online Optimization of LoRA Adapters for Drag-based Image Editing in Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.12427/) (2025)
- [AdaptiveDrag: Semantic-Driven Dragging on Diffusion-Based Image Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.12696/) (2024)
- [MoEdit: On Learning Quantity Perception for Multi-object Image Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.10112/) (2025)
- [DragNeXt: Rethinking Drag-Based Image Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.07611/) (2025)
- [Dragging with Geometry: From Pixels to Geometry-Guided Image Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.25740/) (2025)
- [LazyDrag: Enabling Stable Drag-Based Editing on Multi-Modal Diffusion Transformers via Explicit Correspondence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.12203/) (2025)
- [DragTex: Generative Point-Based Texture Editing on 3D Mesh](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.02217/) (2024)
- [Omni123: Exploring 3D Native Foundation Models with Limited 3D Data by Unifying Text to 2D and 3D Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.02289/) (2026)
- [GeoDiffusion: A Training-Free Framework for Accurate 3D Geometric Conditioning in Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.22337/) (2025)
- [TDEdit: A Unified Diffusion Framework for Text-Drag Guided Image Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.21905/) (2025)
- [DirectDrag: High-Fidelity, Mask-Free, Prompt-Free Drag-based Image Editing via Readout-Guided Feature Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.03981/) (2025)
- [RealDrag: The First Dragging Benchmark with Real Target Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.12287/) (2025)
- [TopoEdit: Fast Post-Optimization Editing of Topology Optimized Structures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.22430/) (2026)
- [Editing Away the Evidence: Diffusion-Based Image Manipulation and the Failure Modes of Robust Watermarking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.12949/) (2026)
- [ExpressEdit: Fast Editing of Stylized Facial Expressions with Diffusion Models in Photoshop](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.03448/) (2026)
- [Drag within Prior Distribution: Text-Conditioned Point-Based Image Editing within Distribution Constraints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.13349/) (2026)
- [Drag as Evidence: Motion-Grounded Latent Recomposition for Drag-Based Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.36755/) (2026)
- [VIF-Bench: Evaluating Visual Instruction Following in Multi-Reference Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.37709/) (2026)
- [ThinkDrag: Semantic Drag-Based Image Editing with Visual Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.13316/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

To serve the intricate and varied demands of image editing, precise and flexible manipulation in image content is indispensable. Recently, Drag-based editing methods have gained impressive performance. However, these methods predominantly center on point dragging, resulting in two noteworthy drawbacks, namely "miss tracking", where difficulties arise in accurately tracking the predetermined handle points, and "ambiguous tracking", where tracked points are potentially positioned in wrong regions that closely resemble the handle points. To address the above issues, we propose FreeDrag, a feature dragging methodology designed to free the burden on point tracking. The FreeDrag incorporates two key designs, i.e., template feature via adaptive updating and line search with backtracking, the former improves the stability against drastic content change by elaborately controls feature updating scale after each dragging, while the latter alleviates the misguidance from similar points by actively restricting the search area in a line. These two technologies together contribute to a more stable semantic dragging with higher efficiency. Comprehensive experimental results substantiate that our approach significantly outperforms pre-existing methodologies, offering reliable point-based editing even in various complex scenarios.