mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Not All Noises Are Created Equally:Diffusion Noise Selection and Optimization

arXiv 2407.14041 ↗First posted 19 Jul 2024cs.CVcited by 70

On the map: Diffusion models → Diffusion foundations and sampling

Abstract (arXiv)

Diffusion models that can generate high-quality data from randomly sampled Gaussian noises have become the mainstream generative method in both academia and industry. Are randomly sampled Gaussian noises equally good for diffusion models? While a large body of works tried to understand and improve diffusion models, previous works overlooked the possibility to select or optimize the sampled noise the possibility of selecting or optimizing sampled noises for improving diffusion models. In this paper, we mainly made three contributions. First, we report that not all noises are created equally for diffusion models. We are the first to hypothesize and empirically observe that the generation quality of diffusion models significantly depend on the noise inversion stability. This naturally provides us a noise selection method according to the inversion stability. Second, we further propose a novel noise optimization method that actively enhances the inversion stability of arbitrary given noises. Our method is the first one that works on noise space to generally improve generated results without fine-tuning diffusion models. Third, our extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed noise selection and noise optimization methods both significantly improve representative diffusion models, such as SDXL and SDXL-turbo, in terms of human preference and other objective evaluation metrics. For example, the human preference winning rates of noise selection and noise optimization over the baselines can be up to 57% and 72.5%, respectively, on DrawBench.

Key facts. Cited by 70 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Diffusion foundations and sampling, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 41 of its 51 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 19 Jul 2024.

Builds on

41 of 51 references.

Closest ancestors · 10

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2024SDXL-Lightning: Progressive Adversarial Diffusion Distillation21 Feb
  2. 2023Adversarial Diffusion Distillation28 Nov
  3. 2023SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesis4 Jul
  4. 2023Structural Pruning for Diffusion Models18 May
  5. 2023End-to-End Diffusion Latent Optimization Improves Classifier Guidance23 Mar
  6. 2022Elucidating the Design Space of Diffusion-Based Generative Models1 Jun
  7. 2021Cascaded Diffusion Models for High Fidelity Image Generation30 May
  8. 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis11 May
  9. 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models6 Oct
  10. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models19 Jun

Other references · 31

  1. 2014Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimizationcited by 36,960
  2. 2014Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Contextcited by 17,498
  3. 2018The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metriccited by 11,029
  4. 2022Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understandingcited by 6,322
  5. 2023Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 5,466
  6. 2022LAION-5B: An open large-scale dataset for training next generation image-text modelscited by 4,131
  7. 2021GLIDE: Towards Photorealistic Image Generation and Editing with Text-Guided Diffusion Modelscited by 3,595
  8. 2022Prompt-to-Prompt Image Editing with Cross Attention Controlcited by 2,409
  9. 2022Video Diffusion Modelscited by 2,280
  10. 2022Imagen Video: High Definition Video Generation with Diffusion Modelscited by 1,765
  11. 2022Imagic: Text-Based Real Image Editing with Diffusion Modelscited by 1,172
  12. 2022Null-text Inversion for Editing Real Images using Guided Diffusion Modelscited by 1,168
19 more
  1. 2023ImageReward: Learning and Evaluating Human Preferences for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 1,010
  2. 2023Pick-a-Pic: An Open Dataset of User Preferences for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 950
  3. 2023GenEval: An Object-Focused Framework for Evaluating Text-to-Image Alignmentcited by 946
  4. 2023Human Preference Score v2: A Solid Benchmark for Evaluating Human Preferences of Text-to-Image Synthesiscited by 847
  5. 2023Attend-and-Excite: Attention-Based Semantic Guidance for Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 696
  6. 2022DiffusionDB: A Large-scale Prompt Gallery Dataset for Text-to-Image Generative Modelscited by 376
  7. 2024SV3D: Novel Multi-view Synthesis and 3D Generation from a Single Image using Latent Video Diffusioncited by 364
  8. 2023OmniObject3D: Large-Vocabulary 3D Object Dataset for Realistic Perception, Reconstruction and Generationcited by 324
  9. 2023DragDiffusion: Harnessing Diffusion Models for Interactive Point-based Image Editingcited by 293
  10. 2023An Edit Friendly DDPM Noise Space: Inversion and Manipulationscited by 243
  11. 20233DGen: Triplane Latent Diffusion for Textured Mesh Generationcited by 181
  12. 2023HyperDiffusion: Generating Implicit Neural Fields with Weight-Space Diffusioncited by 152
  13. 2024InitNO: Boosting Text-to-Image Diffusion Models via Initial Noise Optimizationcited by 123
  14. 2024D-Flow: Differentiating through Flows for Controlled Generationcited by 115
  15. 2023A-STAR: Test-time Attention Segregation and Retention for Text-to-image Synthesiscited by 78
  16. 2023Guided Image Synthesis via Initial Image Editing in Diffusion Modelcited by 63
  17. 2024Drag Your Noise: Interactive Point-based Editing via Diffusion Semantic Propagationcited by 50
  18. 2023If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again: Faithful Diffusion-based Text-to-Image Generation by Selectioncited by 40
  19. 2024Videoshop: Localized Semantic Video Editing with Noise-Extrapolated Diffusion Inversioncited by 27

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 13; 2025: 34; 2026: 23.

70 papers.

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  1. 2025Inference-Time Scaling for Diffusion Models beyond Scaling Denoising Stepscited by 225
  2. 2024SAFREE: Training-Free and Adaptive Guard for Safe Text-to-Image And Video Generationcited by 125
  3. 2024Golden Noise for Diffusion Models: A Learning Frameworkcited by 91
  4. 2025From Reflection to Perfection: Scaling Inference-Time Optimization for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models via Reflection Tuningcited by 53
  5. 2024A Noise is Worth Diffusion Guidancecited by 48
  6. 2025Inference-Time Text-to-Video Alignment with Diffusion Latent Beam Searchcited by 40
  7. 2024Zigzag Diffusion Sampling: Diffusion Models Can Self-Improve via Self-Reflectioncited by 38
  8. 2024Alignment of Diffusion Models: Fundamentals, Challenges, and Futurecited by 34
  9. 2025Test-Time Scaling of Diffusion Models via Noise Trajectory Searchcited by 28
  10. 2024The Silent Assistant: NoiseQuery as Implicit Guidance for Goal-Driven Image Generationcited by 14
  11. 2024Self-Correcting Text-to-Video Generation with Misalignment Detection and Localized Refinementcited by 13
  12. 2024Text Embedding is Not All You Need: Attention Control for Text-to-Image Semantic Alignment with Text Self-Attention Mapscited by 12
38 more
  1. 2025ScalingNoise: Scaling Inference-Time Search for Generating Infinite Videoscited by 12
  2. 2025GARF: Learning Generalizable 3D Reassembly for Real-World Fracturescited by 12
  3. 2024ComfyGen: Prompt-Adaptive Workflows for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 11
  4. 2026LatSearch: Latent Reward-Guided Search for Faster Inference-Time Scaling in Video Diffusioncited by 9
  5. 2024IV-Mixed Sampler: Leveraging Image Diffusion Models for Enhanced Video Synthesiscited by 8
  6. 2024Bag of Design Choices for Inference of High-Resolution Masked Generative Transformercited by 7
  7. 2024A Simple and Efficient Baseline for Zero-Shot Generative Classificationcited by 7
  8. 2025Noise Matters: Optimizing Matching Noise for Diffusion Classifierscited by 7
  9. 2025Effective Test-Time Scaling of Discrete Diffusion through Iterative Refinementcited by 7
  10. 2025Towards a Golden Classifier-Free Guidance Path via Foresight Fixed Point Iterationscited by 6
  11. 2026RAISE: Requirement-Adaptive Evolutionary Refinement for Training-Free Text-to-Image Alignmentcited by 6
  12. 2025Dimathtt[M]O: Distilling Masked Diffusion Models into One-step Generatorcited by 5
  13. 2025ReGuidance: A Simple Diffusion Wrapper for Boosting Sample Quality on Hard Inverse Problemscited by 5
  14. 2026You've Got a Golden Ticket: Improving Generative Robot Policies With A Single Noise Vectorcited by 5
  15. 2025Antithetic Noise in Diffusion Modelscited by 4
  16. 2025AutoRefiner: Improving Autoregressive Video Diffusion Models via Reflective Refinement Over the Stochastic Sampling Pathcited by 4
  17. 2026FASTER: Value-Guided Sampling for Fast RLcited by 4
  18. 2026TapSampling: Inference-Time Sampling with a Task-Progress-Understanding Verifier for Robotic Manipulationcited by 4
  19. 2025A Minimalist Method for Fine-tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 3
  20. 2025LORE: Latent Optimization for Precise Semantic Control in Rectified Flow-based Image Editingcited by 3
  21. 2024Efficient Semantic Splatting for Remote Sensing Multi-view Segmentationcited by 2
  22. 2025Not All Parameters Matter: Masking Diffusion Models for Enhancing Generation Abilitycited by 2
  23. 2025Guided Unconditional and Conditional Generative Models for Super-Resolution and Inference of Quasi-Geostrophic Turbulencecited by 2
  24. 2025Navigating the Exploration-Exploitation Tradeoff in Inference-Time Scaling of Diffusion Modelscited by 2
  25. 2025IS-Diff: Improving Diffusion-Based Inpainting with Better Initial Seedcited by 2
  26. 2025Noise-Level Diffusion Guidance: Well Begun is Half Donecited by 2
  27. 2025TAUE: Training-free Noise Transplant and Cultivation Diffusion Modelcited by 2
  28. 2026CRAFT: Aligning Diffusion Models with Fine-Tuning Is Easier Than You Thinkcited by 2
  29. 2026Oracle Noise: Faster Semantic Spherical Alignment for Interpretable Latent Optimizationcited by 2
  30. 2026Couple to Control: Joint Initial Noise Design in Diffusion Modelscited by 2
  31. 2025Language-based Image Colorization: A Benchmark and Beyondcited by 1
  32. 2025Policy Optimized Text-to-Image Pipeline Designcited by 1
  33. 2025Latent Diffusion Unlearning: Protecting Against Unauthorized Personalization Through Trajectory Shifted Perturbationscited by 1
  34. 2025NDM: A Noise-driven Detection and Mitigation Framework against Implicit Sexual Intentions in Text-to-Image Generationcited by 1
  35. 2025Inference-Time Scaling of Diffusion Models for Infrared Data Generationcited by 1
  36. 2025Rethinking Prompt Design for Inference-time Scaling in Text-to-Visual Generationcited by 1
  37. 2026Inference-Time Scaling for Visual AutoRegressive modeling by Searching Representative Samplescited by 1
  38. 2026LGTM: Training-Free Light-Guided Text-to-Image Diffusion Model via Initial Noise Manipulationcited by 1

50 most cited of 70 All 70 (JSON)

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  1. 2025Diffusion Models under Alternative Noise: Simplified Analysis and Sensitivity
  2. 2024GUD: Generation with Unified Diffusion
  3. 2025CCS: Controllable and Constrained Sampling with Diffusion Models via Initial Noise Perturbation
  4. 2026Noise in Diffusion Models Is a Learnable Input
  5. 2021Noise Estimation for Generative Diffusion Models
  6. 2023Common Diffusion Noise Schedules and Sample Steps are Flawed
  7. 2023Diffusion models with location-scale noise
  8. 2024Improved Noise Schedule for Diffusion Training