# SpecRef: A Fast Training-free Baseline of Specific Reference-Condition Real Image Editing

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.03433 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.03433/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Image generation, text-to-image and editing, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 30 of its 34 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 7 Jan 2024.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Image generation, text-to-image and editing](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/image-generation-text-to-image-and-editing/)

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

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Segment Anything](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02643/) (2023)
- [Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.05600/) (2019)
- [Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09672/) (2021)
- [GLIDE: Towards Photorealistic Image Generation and Editing with Text-Guided Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10741/) (2021)
- [DreamBooth: Fine Tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Subject-Driven Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12242/) (2022)
- [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)
- [An Image is Worth One Word: Personalizing Text-to-Image Generation using Textual Inversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.01618/) (2022)
- [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)
- [Cascaded Diffusion Models for High Fidelity Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.15282/) (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)
- [MasaCtrl: Tuning-Free Mutual Self-Attention Control for Consistent Image Synthesis and Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08465/) (2023)
- [Attend-and-Excite: Attention-Based Semantic Guidance for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.13826/) (2023)
- [DiffusionCLIP: Text-Guided Diffusion Models for Robust Image Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.02711/) (2021)
- [Blended Latent Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.02779/) (2022)
- [InstantBooth: Personalized Text-to-Image Generation without Test-Time Finetuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03411/) (2023)
- [VQGAN-CLIP: Open Domain Image Generation and Editing with Natural Language Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.08583/) (2022)
- [Improved StyleGAN Embedding: Where are the Good Latents?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.09036/) (2020)
- [WaveDM: Wavelet-Based Diffusion Models for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.13819/) (2023)
- [KV Inversion: KV Embeddings Learning for Text-Conditioned Real Image Action Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16608/) (2023)
- [FEC: Three Finetuning-free Methods to Enhance Consistency for Real Image Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.14934/) (2023)
- [Bootstrap Diffusion Model Curve Estimation for High Resolution Low-Light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.14709/) (2023)
- [IFAST: Weakly Supervised Interpretable Face Anti-spoofing from Single-shot Binocular NIR Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.17399/) (2023)
- [Seal2Real: Prompt Prior Learning on Diffusion Model for Unsupervised Document Seal Data Generation and Realisation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.00546/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Edit Transfer: Learning Image Editing via Vision In-Context Relations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.13327/) (2025)
- [MagicFight: Personalized Martial Arts Combat Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.02107/) (2026)
- [EditTransfer++: Toward Faithful and Efficient Visual-Prompt-Guided Image Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.07455/) (2026)
- [When Recovery Matters: The Blind Spot of Surrogate Privacy in MLLM Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.07171/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Text-conditional image editing based on large diffusion generative model has attracted the attention of both the industry and the research community. Most existing methods are non-reference editing, with the user only able to provide a source image and text prompt. However, it restricts user's control over the characteristics of editing outcome. To increase user freedom, we propose a new task called Specific Reference Condition Real Image Editing, which allows user to provide a reference image to further control the outcome, such as replacing an object with a particular one. To accomplish this, we propose a fast baseline method named SpecRef. Specifically, we design a Specific Reference Attention Controller to incorporate features from the reference image, and adopt a mask mechanism to prevent interference between editing and non-editing regions. We evaluate SpecRef on typical editing tasks and show that it can achieve satisfactory performance. The source code is available on https://github.com/jingjiqinggong/specp2p.