# Asymmetric Mask Scheme for Self-Supervised Real Image Denoising

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.06514 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.06514/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 31 of its 43 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Jul 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 31)

- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Masked Autoencoders Are Scalable Vision Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.06377/) (2021)
- [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)
- [Beyond a Gaussian Denoiser: Residual Learning of Deep CNN for Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.03981/) (2016)
- [Uformer: A General U-Shaped Transformer for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.03106/) (2021)
- [FFDNet: Toward a Fast and Flexible Solution for CNN based Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.04026/) (2017)
- [Noise2Void - Learning Denoising from Single Noisy Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.10980/) (2018)
- [Noise2Self: Blind Denoising by Self-Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.11365/) (2019)
- [Toward Convolutional Blind Denoising of Real Photographs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.04686/) (2018)
- [Benchmarking Denoising Algorithms with Real Photographs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.01313/) (2017)
- [Real Image Denoising with Feature Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.07396/) (2019)
- [Neighbor2Neighbor: Self-Supervised Denoising from Single Noisy Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.02824/) (2021)
- [High-Quality Self-Supervised Deep Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.10277/) (2019)
- [Variational Denoising Network: Toward Blind Noise Modeling and Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.11314/) (2019)
- [AP-BSN: Self-Supervised Denoising for Real-World Images via Asymmetric PD and Blind-Spot Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11799/) (2022)
- [Towards High-Resolution Salient Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07274/) (2019)
- [Transfer Learning from Synthetic to Real-Noise Denoising with Adaptive Instance Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.11244/) (2020)
- [Blind2Unblind: Self-Supervised Image Denoising with Visible Blind Spots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.06967/) (2022)
- [NAFSSR: Stereo Image Super-Resolution Using NAFNet](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.08714/) (2022)
- [Real-world Noisy Image Denoising: A New Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.02603/) (2018)
- [Unpaired Learning of Deep Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.13711/) (2020)
- [Noise2Same: Optimizing A Self-Supervised Bound for Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11971/) (2020)
- [C2N: Practical Generative Noise Modeling for Real-World Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.09533/) (2022)
- [When AWGN-based Denoiser Meets Real Noises](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.03485/) (2019)
- [CVF-SID: Cyclic multi-Variate Function for Self-Supervised Image Denoising by Disentangling Noise from Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.13009/) (2022)
- [LG-BPN: Local and Global Blind-Patch Network for Self-Supervised Real-World Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.00534/) (2023)
- [Spatially Adaptive Self-Supervised Learning for Real-World Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14934/) (2023)
- [Random Sub-Samples Generation for Self-Supervised Real Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.16825/) (2023)
- [Unsupervised Image Denoising in Real-World Scenarios via Self-Collaboration Parallel Generative Adversarial Branches](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.06776/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Exploring Semantic Feature Discrimination for Perceptual Image Super-Resolution and Opinion-Unaware No-Reference Image Quality Assessment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19295/) (2025)
- [Dual-Representation Interaction Driven Image Quality Assessment with Restoration Assistance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.17390/) (2024)
- [FM2S: Towards Spatially-Correlated Noise Modeling in Zero-Shot Fluorescence Microscopy Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.10031/) (2024)
- [Towards Robust Image Denoising with Scale Equivariance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.02967/) (2025)
- [Beyond Fixed Inference: Quantitative Flow Matching for Adaptive Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.02392/) (2026)
- [Poisson2Gaussian: Noise Gaussianization to Enhance Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.23098/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In recent years, self-supervised denoising methods have gained significant success and become critically important in the field of image restoration. Among them, the blind spot network based methods are the most typical type and have attracted the attentions of a large number of researchers. Although the introduction of blind spot operations can prevent identity mapping from noise to noise, it imposes stringent requirements on the receptive fields in the network design, thereby limiting overall performance. To address this challenge, we propose a single mask scheme for self-supervised denoising training, which eliminates the need for blind spot operation and thereby removes constraints on the network structure design. Furthermore, to achieve denoising across entire image during inference, we propose a multi-mask scheme. Our method, featuring the asymmetric mask scheme in training and inference, achieves state-of-the-art performance on existing real noisy image datasets. All the source code will be made available to the public.