mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Diffusion Models, Image Super-Resolution And Everything: A Survey

arXiv 2401.00736 ↗First posted 1 Jan 2024cs.CV cs.AI cs.LGcited by 63

On the map: Diffusion models → Inverse problems and image restoration

Abstract (arXiv)

Diffusion Models (DMs) have disrupted the image Super-Resolution (SR) field and further closed the gap between image quality and human perceptual preferences. They are easy to train and can produce very high-quality samples that exceed the realism of those produced by previous generative methods. Despite their promising results, they also come with new challenges that need further research: high computational demands, comparability, lack of explainability, color shifts, and more. Unfortunately, entry into this field is overwhelming because of the abundance of publications. To address this, we provide a unified recount of the theoretical foundations underlying DMs applied to image SR and offer a detailed analysis that underscores the unique characteristics and methodologies within this domain, distinct from broader existing reviews in the field. This survey articulates a cohesive understanding of DM principles and explores current research avenues, including alternative input domains, conditioning techniques, guidance mechanisms, corruption spaces, and zero-shot learning approaches. By offering a detailed examination of the evolution and current trends in image SR through the lens of DMs, this survey sheds light on the existing challenges and charts potential future directions, aiming to inspire further innovation in this rapidly advancing area.

Key facts. Cited by 63 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Inverse problems and image restoration, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 139 of its 193 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 1 Jan 2024.

Builds on

139 of 193 references.

Closest ancestors · 28

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2023DiffusionSat: A Generative Foundation Model for Satellite Imagery6 Dec
  2. 2023SeeSR: Towards Semantics-Aware Real-World Image Super-Resolution27 Nov
  3. 2023EDiffSR: An Efficient Diffusion Probabilistic Model for Remote Sensing Image Super-Resolution30 Oct
  4. 2023Pixel-Aware Stable Diffusion for Realistic Image Super-resolution and Personalized Stylization28 Aug
  5. 2023Diffusion Models for Image Restoration and Enhancement: A Comprehensive Survey18 Aug
  6. 2023Dynamic Attention-Guided Diffusion for Image Super-Resolution15 Aug
  7. 2023ResShift: Efficient Diffusion Model for Image Super-resolution by Residual Shifting23 Jul
  8. 2023WaveDM: Wavelet-Based Diffusion Models for Image Restoration23 May
  9. 2023Hierarchical Integration Diffusion Model for Realistic Image Deblurring22 May
  10. 2023Dual-Diffusion: Dual Conditional Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models for Blind Super-Resolution Reconstruction in RSIs20 May
  11. 2023Exploiting Diffusion Prior for Real-World Image Super-Resolution11 May
  12. 2023Atmospheric Turbulence Correction via Variational Deep Diffusion8 May
16 more
  1. 2023Refusion: Enabling Large-Size Realistic Image Restoration with Latent-Space Diffusion Models17 Apr
  2. 2023Waving Goodbye to Low-Res: A Diffusion-Wavelet Approach for Image Super-Resolution4 Apr
  3. 2023Generative Diffusion Prior for Unified Image Restoration and Enhancement3 Apr
  4. 2023Inversion by Direct Iteration: An Alternative to Denoising Diffusion for Image Restoration20 Mar
  5. 2023DiffIR: Efficient Diffusion Model for Image Restoration16 Mar
  6. 2023ResDiff: Combining CNN and Diffusion Model for Image Super-Resolution15 Mar
  7. 2023CDPMSR: Conditional Diffusion Probabilistic Models for Single Image Super-Resolution14 Feb
  8. 2022DifFace: Blind Face Restoration with Diffused Error Contraction13 Dec
  9. 2022Zero-Shot Image Restoration Using Denoising Diffusion Null-Space Model1 Dec
  10. 2022Diffusion Posterior Sampling for General Noisy Inverse Problems29 Sep
  11. 2022AT-DDPM: Restoring Faces degraded by Atmospheric Turbulence using Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models24 Aug
  12. 2022Improving Diffusion Models for Inverse Problems using Manifold Constraints2 Jun
  13. 2022Denoising Diffusion Restoration Models27 Jan
  14. 2021Come-Closer-Diffuse-Faster: Accelerating Conditional Diffusion Models for Inverse Problems through Stochastic Contraction9 Dec
  15. 2021Deblurring via Stochastic Refinement5 Dec
  16. 2021SRDiff: Single Image Super-Resolution with Diffusion Probabilistic Models30 Apr

Other references · 111

  1. 2017Attention Is All You Needcited by 59,932
  2. 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,456
  3. 2020An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scalecited by 29,915
  4. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 20,851
  5. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,694
  6. 2014Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognitioncited by 15,267
  7. 2018The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metriccited by 11,029
  8. 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Modelscited by 9,655
  9. 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 8,964
  10. 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesiscited by 8,185
  11. 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,005
  12. 2021Emerging Properties in Self-Supervised Vision Transformerscited by 6,893
38 more
  1. 2016Densely Connected Convolutional Networkscited by 6,691
  2. 2022Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latentscited by 6,539
  3. 2022Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understandingcited by 6,322
  4. 2018A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 5,986
  5. 2022Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidancecited by 5,717
  6. 2022Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 5,603
  7. 2023Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 5,466
  8. 2019Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distributioncited by 4,067
  9. 2021Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 3,736
  10. 2020Taming Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 3,229
  11. 2022Elucidating the Design Space of Diffusion-Based Generative Modelscited by 2,994
  12. 2017Progressive Growing of GANs for Improved Quality, Stability, and Variationcited by 2,967
  13. 2019CutMix: Regularization Strategy to Train Strong Classifiers with Localizable Featurescited by 2,875
  14. 2018Large Scale GAN Training for High Fidelity Natural Image Synthesiscited by 2,609
  15. 2015Variational Inference with Normalizing Flowscited by 2,161
  16. 2022DPM-Solver: A Fast ODE Solver for Diffusion Probabilistic Model Sampling in Around 10 Stepscited by 1,961
  17. 2016Photo-Realistic Single Image Super-Resolution Using a Generative Adversarial Networkcited by 1,898
  18. 2021SwinIR: Image Restoration Using Swin Transformercited by 1,869
  19. 2017Enhanced Deep Residual Networks for Single Image Super-Resolutioncited by 1,543
  20. 2021Image Super-Resolution via Iterative Refinementcited by 1,506
  21. 2022RePaint: Inpainting using Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 1,419
  22. 2019Normalizing Flows for Probabilistic Modeling and Inferencecited by 1,315
  23. 2018ESRGAN: Enhanced Super-Resolution Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 1,250
  24. 2014Image Super-Resolution Using Deep Convolutional Networkscited by 1,218
  25. 2016Real-Time Single Image and Video Super-Resolution Using an Efficient Sub-Pixel Convolutional Neural Networkcited by 1,199
  26. 2021Cascaded Diffusion Models for High Fidelity Image Generationcited by 1,155
  27. 2021Variational Diffusion Modelscited by 1,145
  28. 2022Diffusion Models: A Comprehensive Survey of Methods and Applicationscited by 1,107
  29. 2021MUSIQ: Multi-scale Image Quality Transformercited by 1,058
  30. 2022Exploring CLIP for Assessing the Look and Feel of Imagescited by 974
  31. 2021Real-ESRGAN: Training Real-World Blind Super-Resolution with Pure Synthetic Datacited by 961
  32. 2022DPM-Solver++: Fast Solver for Guided Sampling of Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 924
  33. 2022On Distillation of Guided Diffusion Modelscited by 721
  34. 2022Autoregressive Image Generation using Residual Quantizationcited by 706
  35. 2022Simple Baselines for Image Restorationcited by 701
  36. 2021Maximum Likelihood Training of Score-Based Diffusion Modelscited by 670
  37. 2021DiffusionCLIP: Text-Guided Diffusion Models for Robust Image Manipulationcited by 640
  38. 2021Score-based Generative Modeling in Latent Spacecited by 634

50 most cited of 111 All 111 (JSON)

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 21; 2025: 29; 2026: 13.

63 papers.

Sort:

By area:

  1. 2024Diffusion Model-Based Image Editing: A Surveycited by 212
  2. 2024Diffusion Models in Low-Level Vision: A Surveycited by 73
  3. 2024Deepfake Generation and Detection: A Benchmark and Surveycited by 66
  4. 2025UniCTokens: Boosting Personalized Understanding and Generation via Unified Concept Tokenscited by 55
  5. 2024Diffusion Models Meet Remote Sensing: Principles, Methods, and Perspectivescited by 27
  6. 2024Unlocking Dataset Distillation with Diffusion Modelscited by 21
  7. 2024Diffusion Model for Planning: A Systematic Literature Reviewcited by 17
  8. 2024MoE-DiffIR: Task-customized Diffusion Priors for Universal Compressed Image Restorationcited by 15
  9. 2024Can AI be enabled to dynamical downscaling? A Latent Diffusion Model to mimic km-scale COSMO5.0CLM9 simulationscited by 14
  10. 2024GenMix: Effective Data Augmentation with Generative Diffusion Model Image Editingcited by 14
  11. 2025OMGSR: You Only Need One Mid-timestep Guidance for Real-World Image Super-Resolutioncited by 14
  12. 2025FDS: Frequency-Aware Denoising Score for Text-Guided Latent Diffusion Image Editingcited by 12
38 more
  1. 2024SpotDiffusion: A Fast Approach For Seamless Panorama Generation Over Timecited by 11
  2. 2024TKG-DM: Training-free Chroma Key Content Generation Diffusion Modelcited by 11
  3. 2025MRI super-resolution reconstruction using efficient diffusion probabilistic model with residual shiftingcited by 10
  4. 2024Consistency Model is an Effective Posterior Sample Approximation for Diffusion Inverse Solverscited by 8
  5. 2024Cross-modal Diffusion Modelling for Super-resolved Spatial Transcriptomicscited by 7
  6. 2025MRI Super-Resolution with Deep Learning: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 7
  7. 2024A Study in Dataset Pruning for Image Super-Resolutioncited by 6
  8. 2024Theory on Score-Mismatched Diffusion Models and Zero-Shot Conditional Samplerscited by 6
  9. 2025Hallucination Score: Towards Mitigating Hallucinations in Generative Image Super-Resolutioncited by 5
  10. 2024SynthSet: Generative Diffusion Model for Semantic Segmentation in Precision Agriculturecited by 4
  11. 2025EEGDM: EEG Representation Learning via Generative Diffusion Modelcited by 4
  12. 2024Data Pruning in Generative Diffusion Modelscited by 3
  13. 2025Semantic-Guided Cross-Sensor Super Resolution of Remote Sensing Images: A Gated Dual Conditioning Flow Matching Modelcited by 3
  14. 2024Federated Learning for Blind Image Super-Resolutioncited by 2
  15. 2024Webcam-based Pupil Diameter Prediction Benefits from Upscalingcited by 2
  16. 2025A Study in Dataset Distillation for Image Super-Resolutioncited by 2
  17. 2025Upcycling Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Multi-Task Capabilitiescited by 2
  18. 2025Plug-and-Play Latent Diffusion for Electromagnetic Inverse Scattering with Application to Brain Imagingcited by 2
  19. 2025Deep Neural Networks Inspired by Differential Equationscited by 2
  20. 2025Latent Refinement via Flow Matching for Training-free Linear Inverse Problem Solvingcited by 2
  21. 2024A Low-Resolution Image is Worth 1x1 Words: Enabling Fine Image Super-Resolution with Transformers and TaylorShiftcited by 1
  22. 2025MAP-based Problem-Agnostic diffusion model for Inverse Problemscited by 1
  23. 2025SecureT2I: No More Unauthorized Manipulation on AI Generated Images from Promptscited by 1
  24. 2025Deep Learning Empowered Super-Resolution: A Comprehensive Survey and Future Prospectscited by 1
  25. 2025Restoring Noisy Demonstration for Imitation Learning With Diffusion Modelscited by 1
  26. 2025Flood-LDM: Generalizable Latent Diffusion Models for rapid and accurate zero-shot High-Resolution Flood Mappingcited by 1
  27. 2025CHEM: Estimating and Understanding Hallucinations in Deep Learning for Image Processingcited by 1
  28. 2026DualTSR: Unified Dual-Diffusion Transformer for Scene Text Image Super-Resolutioncited by 1
  29. 2026Patch-PODiff-ViT: Structured Latent Diffusion with Patchwise POD for Super-Resolution and Uncertainty Quantificationcited by 1
  30. 2024Just Leaf It: Accelerating Diffusion Classifiers with Hierarchical Class Pruningcited by 0
  31. 2025Multi-Label Scene Classification in Remote Sensing Benefits from Image Super-Resolutioncited by 0
  32. 2025SpikeGen: Decoupled "Rods and Cones" Visual Representation Processing with Latent Generative Frameworkcited by 0
  33. 2025HaDM-ST: Histology-Assisted Differential Modeling for Spatial Transcriptomics Generationcited by 0
  34. 2025Fast 3D Diffusion for Scalable Granular Media Synthesiscited by 0
  35. 2025Few-shot multi-token DreamBooth with LoRa for style-consistent character generationcited by 0
  36. 2025BrainPuzzle: Hybrid Physics and Data-Driven Reconstruction for Transcranial Ultrasound Tomographycited by 0
  37. 2025Detecting AI-Generated Images via Diffusion Snap-Back Reconstruction: A Forensic Approachcited by 0
  38. 2025Towards Multi-Fidelity Scaling Laws of Neural Surrogates in CFDcited by 0

50 most cited of 63 All 63 (JSON)

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2023Dissecting Arbitrary-scale Super-resolution Capability from Pre-trained Diffusion Generative Models
  2. 2023DREAM: Diffusion Rectification and Estimation-Adaptive Models
  3. 2023Solving Diffusion ODEs with Optimal Boundary Conditions for Better Image Super-Resolution
  4. 2024Taming Diffusion Prior for Image Super-Resolution with Domain Shift SDEs
  5. 2024ControlSR: Taming Diffusion Models for Consistent Real-World Image Super Resolution
  6. 2024Degradation-Guided One-Step Image Super-Resolution with Diffusion Priors
  7. 2023SinSR: Diffusion-Based Image Super-Resolution in a Single Step
  8. 2024One Step Diffusion-based Super-Resolution with Time-Aware Distillation