# Self-Calibrated Variance-Stabilizing Transformations for Real-World Image Denoising

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.17399 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17399/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 32 of its 73 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Jul 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 32)

- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [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)
- [Deep Image Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10925/) (2017)
- [Noise2Noise: Learning Image Restoration without Clean Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.04189/) (2018)
- [Plug-and-Play Image Restoration with Deep Denoiser Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.13751/) (2020)
- [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)
- [Unprocessing Images for Learned Raw Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.11127/) (2018)
- [CycleISP: Real Image Restoration via Improved Data Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.07761/) (2020)
- [Benchmarking Denoising Algorithms with Real Photographs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.01313/) (2017)
- [Multi-level Wavelet-CNN for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.07071/) (2018)
- [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)
- [Non-Local Recurrent Network for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.02919/) (2018)
- [Noisier2Noise: Learning to Denoise from Unpaired Noisy Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.11908/) (2019)
- [Practical Blind Image Denoising via Swin-Conv-UNet and Data Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.13278/) (2022)
- [Blind2Unblind: Self-Supervised Image Denoising with Visible Blind Spots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.06967/) (2022)
- [Unpaired Learning of Deep Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.13711/) (2020)
- [A Poisson-Gaussian Denoising Dataset with Real Fluorescence Microscopy Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.10366/) (2018)
- [Zero-Shot Noise2Noise: Efficient Image Denoising without any Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11253/) (2023)
- [Probabilistic Noise2Void: Unsupervised Content-Aware Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.00651/) (2019)
- [A Trilateral Weighted Sparse Coding Scheme for Real-World Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.04364/) (2018)
- [Xformer: Hybrid X-Shaped Transformer for Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.06440/) (2023)
- [Learning to Generate Realistic Noisy Images via Pixel-level Noise-aware Adversarial Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.02844/) (2022)
- [Noise2Fast: Fast Self-Supervised Single Image Blind Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10209/) (2021)
- [FBI-Denoiser: Fast Blind Image Denoiser for Poisson-Gaussian Noise](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.10967/) (2021)
- [Improving Blind Spot Denoising for Microscopy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.08414/) (2020)

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

- [Image Denoising Using Global and Local Circulant Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.23569/) (2025)
- [Provably Contractive and High-Quality Denoisers for Convergent Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.26168/) (2026)
- [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)

Supervised deep learning has become the method of choice for image denoising. It involves the training of neural networks on large datasets composed of pairs of noisy and clean images. However, the necessity of training data that are specific to the targeted application constrains the widespread use of denoising networks. Recently, several approaches have been developed to overcome this difficulty by whether artificially generating realistic clean/noisy image pairs, or training exclusively on noisy images. In this paper, we show that, contrary to popular belief, denoising networks specialized in the removal of Gaussian noise can be efficiently leveraged in favor of real-world image denoising, even without additional training. For this to happen, an appropriate variance-stabilizing transform (VST) has to be applied beforehand. We propose an algorithm termed Noise2VST for the learning of such a model-free VST. Our approach requires only the input noisy image and an off-the-shelf Gaussian denoiser. We demonstrate through extensive experiments the efficiency and superiority of Noise2VST in comparison to existing methods trained in the absence of specific clean/noisy pairs.