# DPEC: Dual-Path Error Compensation Method for Enhanced Low-Light Image Clarity

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.09553 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.09553/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 25 of its 50 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 28 Jun 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 25 of 25)

- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Mamba: Linear-Time Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00752/) (2023)
- [Efficiently Modeling Long Sequences with Structured State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.00396/) (2021)
- [Restormer: Efficient Transformer for High-Resolution Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.09881/) (2021)
- [Sigmoid-Weighted Linear Units for Neural Network Function Approximation in Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.03118/) (2017)
- [Pre-Trained Image Processing Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.00364/) (2020)
- [Uformer: A General U-Shaped Transformer for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.03106/) (2021)
- [Simplified State Space Layers for Sequence Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.04933/) (2022)
- [Deep Retinex Decomposition for Low-Light Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.04560/) (2018)
- [Zero-Reference Deep Curve Estimation for Low-Light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.06826/) (2020)
- [EnlightenGAN: Deep Light Enhancement without Paired Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.06972/) (2019)
- [On the Parameterization and Initialization of Diagonal State Space Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.11893/) (2022)
- [Kindling the Darkness: A Practical Low-light Image Enhancer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.04161/) (2019)
- [Diagonal State Spaces are as Effective as Structured State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.14343/) (2022)
- [Learning Enriched Features for Real Image Restoration and Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.06792/) (2020)
- [Retinex-inspired Unrolling with Cooperative Prior Architecture Search for Low-light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.05609/) (2020)
- [VM-UNet: Vision Mamba UNet for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.02491/) (2024)
- [Retinexformer: One-stage Retinex-based Transformer for Low-light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.06705/) (2023)
- [LLNet: A Deep Autoencoder Approach to Natural Low-light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.03995/) (2015)
- [FcaNet: Frequency Channel Attention Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.11879/) (2020)
- [Learning Image-adaptive 3D Lookup Tables for High Performance Photo Enhancement in Real-time](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.14468/) (2020)
- [Liquid Structural State-Space Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.12951/) (2022)
- [DeepLPF: Deep Local Parametric Filters for Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.13985/) (2020)
- [Retinexmamba: Retinex-based Mamba for Low-light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.03349/) (2024)
- [Unpaired Image Enhancement Featuring Reinforcement-Learning-Controlled Image Editing Software](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.07833/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [GM-MoE: Low-Light Enhancement with Gated-Mechanism Mixture-of-Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.07417/) (2025)
- [DIME-Net: A Dual-Illumination Adaptive Enhancement Network Based on Retinex and Mixture-of-Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.13921/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

For the task of low-light image enhancement, deep learning-based algorithms have demonstrated superiority and effectiveness compared to traditional methods. However, these methods, primarily based on Retinex theory, tend to overlook the noise and color distortions in input images, leading to significant noise amplification and local color distortions in enhanced results. To address these issues, we propose the Dual-Path Error Compensation (DPEC) method, designed to improve image quality under low-light conditions by preserving local texture details while restoring global image brightness without amplifying noise. DPEC incorporates precise pixel-level error estimation to capture subtle differences and an independent denoising mechanism to prevent noise amplification. We introduce the HIS-Retinex loss to guide DPEC's training, ensuring the brightness distribution of enhanced images closely aligns with real-world conditions. To balance computational speed and resource efficiency while training DPEC for a comprehensive understanding of the global context, we integrated the VMamba architecture into its backbone. Comprehensive quantitative and qualitative experimental results demonstrate that our algorithm significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods in low-light image enhancement. The code is publicly available online at https://github.com/wangshuang233/DPEC.
