# Emphasizing Crucial Features for Efficient Image Restoration

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.11468 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.11468/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 38 of its 69 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 May 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 38)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [SGDR: Stochastic Gradient Descent with Warm Restarts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.03983/) (2016)
- [SwinIR: Image Restoration Using Swin Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10257/) (2021)
- [Restormer: Efficient Transformer for High-Resolution Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.09881/) (2021)
- [MLP-Mixer: An all-MLP Architecture for Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.01601/) (2021)
- [Uformer: A General U-Shaped Transformer for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.03106/) (2021)
- [Multi-Stage Progressive Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.02808/) (2021)
- [Simple Baselines for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.04676/) (2022)
- [Benchmarking Single Image Dehazing and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.04143/) (2017)
- [DeblurGAN-v2: Deblurring (Orders-of-Magnitude) Faster and Better](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.03826/) (2019)
- [FFA-Net: Feature Fusion Attention Network for Single Image Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.07559/) (2019)
- [MAXIM: Multi-Axis MLP for Image Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.02973/) (2022)
- [Vision Transformers for Single Image Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.03883/) (2022)
- [TransWeather: Transformer-based Restoration of Images Degraded by Adverse Weather Conditions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.14813/) (2021)
- [Multi-Scale Boosted Dehazing Network with Dense Feature Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.13388/) (2020)
- [GridDehazeNet: Attention-Based Multi-Scale Network for Image Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.03245/) (2019)
- [Contrastive Learning for Compact Single Image Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.09367/) (2021)
- [DesnowNet: Context-Aware Deep Network for Snow Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.04512/) (2017)
- [Efficient Frequency Domain-based Transformers for High-Quality Image Deblurring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.12250/) (2022)
- [Learning Enriched Features for Fast Image Restoration and Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.01649/) (2022)
- [Stripformer: Strip Transformer for Fast Image Deblurring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.04627/) (2022)
- [Defocus Deblurring Using Dual-Pixel Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.00305/) (2020)
- [NH-HAZE: An Image Dehazing Benchmark with Non-Homogeneous Hazy and Haze-Free Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.03560/) (2020)
- [Dense Haze: A benchmark for image dehazing with dense-haze and haze-free images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.02904/) (2019)
- [O-HAZE: a dehazing benchmark with real hazy and haze-free outdoor images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.05101/) (2018)
- [DEA-Net: Single image dehazing based on detail-enhanced convolution and content-guided attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.04805/) (2023)
- [Iterative Filter Adaptive Network for Single Image Defocus Deblurring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.13610/) (2021)
- [Embedding Fourier for Ultra-High-Definition Low-Light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.11831/) (2023)
- [Intriguing Findings of Frequency Selection for Image Deblurring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.11745/) (2021)

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

- [Learning Adaptive Dynamical Features via Multi-τ Liquid-Mamba for All-in-one Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.22801/) (2026)
- [Causal-AgentIR: Self-Evolving Causal Memory for Adaptive Image Restoration Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.21125/) (2026)
- [Learning to Restore More: Continual Capability Expansion for Pretrained Image Restoration Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.30305/) (2026)
- [GraLoD: Graphics-Inspired Continuous Level-of-Detail Learning for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.16578/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Image restoration is a challenging ill-posed problem which estimates latent sharp image from its degraded counterpart. Although the existing methods have achieved promising performance by designing novelty architecture of module, they ignore the fact that different regions in a corrupted image undergo varying degrees of degradation. In this paper, we propose an efficient and effective framework to adapt to varying degrees of degradation across different regions for image restoration. Specifically, we design a spatial and frequency attention mechanism (SFAM) to emphasize crucial features for restoration. SFAM consists of two modules: the spatial domain attention module (SDAM) and the frequency domain attention module (FDAM). The SFAM discerns the degradation location through spatial selective attention and channel selective attention in the spatial domain, while the FDAM enhances high-frequency signals to amplify the disparities between sharp and degraded image pairs in the spectral domain. Additionally, to capture global range information, we introduce a multi-scale block (MSBlock) that consists of three scale branches, each containing multiple simplified channel attention blocks (SCABlocks) and a multi-scale feed-forward block (MSFBlock). Finally, we propose our ECFNet, which integrates the aforementioned components into a U-shaped backbone for recovering high-quality images. Extensive experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of ECFNet, outperforming state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods on both synthetic and real-world datasets.