# CLIP-Guided StyleGAN Inversion for Text-Driven Real Image Editing

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.08397 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.08397/

## Key facts

- Cited by 12 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 57 of its 70 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Jul 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 57)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [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)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [Parameter-Efficient Transfer Learning for NLP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.00751/) (2019)
- [Deep Learning Face Attributes in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.7766/) (2014)
- [Analyzing and Improving the Image Quality of StyleGAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04958/) (2019)
- [Prompt-to-Prompt Image Editing with Cross Attention Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.01626/) (2022)
- [Improved Baselines with Momentum Contrastive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.04297/) (2020)
- [Arbitrary Style Transfer in Real-time with Adaptive Instance Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06868/) (2017)
- [Alias-Free Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12423/) (2021)
- [Imagic: Text-Based Real Image Editing with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.09276/) (2022)
- [StarGAN v2: Diverse Image Synthesis for Multiple Domains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01865/) (2019)
- [StyleCLIP: Text-Driven Manipulation of StyleGAN Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.17249/) (2021)
- [Plug-and-Play Diffusion Features for Text-Driven Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.12572/) (2022)
- [Encoding in Style: a StyleGAN Encoder for Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.00951/) (2020)
- [Unpaired Image-to-Image Translation using Cycle-Consistent Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.10593/) (2017)
- [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)
- [MaskGAN: Towards Diverse and Interactive Facial Image Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.11922/) (2019)
- [GANSpace: Discovering Interpretable GAN Controls](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.02546/) (2020)
- [Learning multiple visual domains with residual adapters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.08045/) (2017)
- [Designing an Encoder for StyleGAN Image Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.02766/) (2021)
- [Pivotal Tuning for Latent-based Editing of Real Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05744/) (2021)
- [In-Domain GAN Inversion for Real Image Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.00049/) (2020)
- [Closed-Form Factorization of Latent Semantics in GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.06600/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [Continuous, Subject-Specific Attribute Control in T2I Models by Identifying Semantic Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17064/) (2024)
- [Analogist: Out-of-the-box Visual In-Context Learning with Image Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.10316/) (2024)
- [Personalized Image Generation with Deep Generative Models: A Decade Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.13081/) (2025)
- [RAVE: Residual Vector Embedding for CLIP-Guided Backlit Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.01889/) (2024)
- [FACEMUG: A Multimodal Generative and Fusion Framework for Local Facial Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.19009/) (2024)
- [Singular Value Scaling: Efficient Generative Model Compression via Pruned Weights Refinement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.17387/) (2024)
- [Learning Common and Salient Generative Factors Between Two Image Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.12800/) (2025)
- [HyperGAN-CLIP: A Unified Framework for Domain Adaptation, Image Synthesis and Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.12832/) (2024)
- [SPF-Portrait: Towards Pure Text-to-Portrait Customization with Semantic Pollution-Free Fine-Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.00396/) (2025)
- [Multi-task SAR Image Processing via GAN-based Unsupervised Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.01553/) (2024)
- [PIDiff: Image Customization for Personalized Identities with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.05081/) (2025)
- [Instruction-based Image Editing: A Survey on Data, Models, Evaluation, and Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.25642/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Researchers have recently begun exploring the use of StyleGAN-based models for real image editing. One particularly interesting application is using natural language descriptions to guide the editing process. Existing approaches for editing images using language either resort to instance-level latent code optimization or map predefined text prompts to some editing directions in the latent space. However, these approaches have inherent limitations. The former is not very efficient, while the latter often struggles to effectively handle multi-attribute changes. To address these weaknesses, we present CLIPInverter, a new text-driven image editing approach that is able to efficiently and reliably perform multi-attribute changes. The core of our method is the use of novel, lightweight text-conditioned adapter layers integrated into pretrained GAN-inversion networks. We demonstrate that by conditioning the initial inversion step on the CLIP embedding of the target description, we are able to obtain more successful edit directions. Additionally, we use a CLIP-guided refinement step to make corrections in the resulting residual latent codes, which further improves the alignment with the text prompt. Our method outperforms competing approaches in terms of manipulation accuracy and photo-realism on various domains including human faces, cats, and birds, as shown by our qualitative and quantitative results.