# RestoreAgent: Autonomous Image Restoration Agent via Multimodal Large Language Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.18035 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.18035/

## Key facts

- Cited by 43 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Image editing and quality assessment, one of 16 directions in Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models.
- Builds on 51 of its 61 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Jul 2024.

## Placed in

- Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models / [Image editing and quality assessment](https://mlsanity.com/mllm/image-editing-and-quality-assessment/)
- LLM agents and tool use / [Multimodal and embodied agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/multimodal-and-embodied-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 51)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [PaLM-E: An Embodied Multimodal Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.03378/) (2023)
- [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)
- [Kosmos-2: Grounding Multimodal Large Language Models to the World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.14824/) (2023)
- [Real-ESRGAN: Training Real-World Blind Super-Resolution with Pure Synthetic Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.10833/) (2021)
- [Image Quality Assessment: Unifying Structure and Texture Similarity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.07728/) (2020)
- [MiniGPT-v2: large language model as a unified interface for vision-language multi-task learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.09478/) (2023)
- [Noise2Noise: Learning Image Restoration without Clean Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.04189/) (2018)
- [Exploiting Diffusion Prior for Real-World Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.07015/) (2023)
- [GLaMM: Pixel Grounding Large Multimodal Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.03356/) (2023)
- [DeblurGAN: Blind Motion Deblurring Using Conditional Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.07064/) (2017)
- [Rethinking Coarse-to-Fine Approach in Single Image Deblurring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.05054/) (2021)
- [SeeSR: Towards Semantics-Aware Real-World Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16518/) (2023)
- [FFA-Net: Feature Fusion Attention Network for Single Image Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.07559/) (2019)
- [Scaling Up to Excellence: Practicing Model Scaling for Photo-Realistic Image Restoration In the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.13627/) (2024)
- [DiffBIR: Towards Blind Image Restoration with Generative Diffusion Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.15070/) (2023)
- [Deblurring via Stochastic Refinement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.02475/) (2021)
- [Residual Non-local Attention Networks for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.10082/) (2019)
- [Retinexformer: One-stage Retinex-based Transformer for Low-light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.06705/) (2023)
- [Contrastive Learning for Compact Single Image Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.09367/) (2021)
- [Learning A Sparse Transformer Network for Effective Image Deraining](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11950/) (2023)
- [PIPAL: a Large-Scale Image Quality Assessment Dataset for Perceptual Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.12142/) (2020)
- [High-Quality Self-Supervised Deep Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.10277/) (2019)
- [InstructIR: High-Quality Image Restoration Following Human Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.16468/) (2024)
- [PromptIR: Prompting for All-in-One Blind Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.13090/) (2023)
- [Revisiting Zeroth-Order Optimization for Memory-Efficient LLM Fine-Tuning: A Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.11592/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 43)

- [A Survey on All-in-One Image Restoration: Taxonomy, Evaluation and Future Trends](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.15067/) (2024)
- [An Intelligent Agentic System for Complex Image Restoration Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.17809/) (2024)
- [FoundIR: Unleashing Million-scale Training Data to Advance Foundation Models for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.01427/) (2024)
- [POSTA: A Go-to Framework for Customized Artistic Poster Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.14908/) (2025)
- [JarvisIR: Elevating Autonomous Driving Perception with Intelligent Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.04158/) (2025)
- [Unveiling Hidden Details: A RAW Data-Enhanced Paradigm for Real-World Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.10798/) (2024)
- [Multi-Agent Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.09403/) (2025)
- [Hybrid Agents for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.10120/) (2025)
- [UniRestorer: Universal Image Restoration via Adaptively Estimating Image Degradation at Proper Granularity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.20157/) (2024)
- [MoA-VR: A Mixture-of-Agents System Towards All-in-One Video Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.08508/) (2025)
- [Follow-Your-Instruction: A Comprehensive MLLM Agent for World Data Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.05580/) (2025)
- [When Continue Learning Meets Multimodal Large Language Model: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.01887/) (2025)
- [Towards Robust Evaluation of STEM Education: Leveraging MLLMs in Project-Based Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.17050/) (2025)
- [WeatherPrompt: Multi-modality Representation Learning for All-Weather Drone Visual Geo-Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.09560/) (2025)
- [Agentic Retoucher for Text-To-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.02046/) (2026)
- [Restore-R1: Efficient Image Restoration Agents via Reinforcement Learning with Multimodal LLM Perceptual Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.18599/) (2025)
- [UniRes: Universal Image Restoration for Complex Degradations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.05599/) (2025)
- [Multi-level Value Alignment in Agentic AI Systems: Survey and Perspectives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.09656/) (2025)
- [TIR-Agent: Training an Explorative and Efficient Agent for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.27742/) (2026)
- [Chain-of-Restoration: Multi-Task Image Restoration Models are Zero-Shot Step-by-Step Universal Image Restorers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.08688/) (2024)
- [Exploring Scalable Unified Modeling for General Low-Level Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.14801/) (2025)
- [PhyDAE: Physics-Guided Degradation-Adaptive Experts for All-in-One Remote Sensing Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.08653/) (2025)
- [RetouchIQ: MLLM Agents for Instruction-Based Image Retouching with Generalist Reward](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.17558/) (2026)
- [OPERA: An Agent for Image Restoration with End-to-End Joint Planning-Execution Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.22104/) (2026)
- [Self-Evolving Agentic Image Restoration via Deliberate Planning and Intuitive Execution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.28971/) (2026)
- [Position: Agentic Systems Constitute a Key Component of Next-Generation Intelligent Image Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.16007/) (2025)
- [PaAgent: Portrait-Aware Image Restoration Agent via Subjective-Objective Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.17055/) (2026)
- [Restore, Assess, Repeat: A Unified Framework for Iterative Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.26385/) (2026)
- [Real-World Adverse Weather Image Restoration via Dual-Level Reinforcement Learning with High-Quality Cold Start](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.05095/) (2025)
- [EpiAgent: An Agent-Centric System for Ancient Inscription Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.09367/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Natural images captured by mobile devices often suffer from multiple types of degradation, such as noise, blur, and low light. Traditional image restoration methods require manual selection of specific tasks, algorithms, and execution sequences, which is time-consuming and may yield suboptimal results. All-in-one models, though capable of handling multiple tasks, typically support only a limited range and often produce overly smooth, low-fidelity outcomes due to their broad data distribution fitting. To address these challenges, we first define a new pipeline for restoring images with multiple degradations, and then introduce RestoreAgent, an intelligent image restoration system leveraging multimodal large language models. RestoreAgent autonomously assesses the type and extent of degradation in input images and performs restoration through (1) determining the appropriate restoration tasks, (2) optimizing the task sequence, (3) selecting the most suitable models, and (4) executing the restoration. Experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of RestoreAgent in handling complex degradation, surpassing human experts. Furthermore, the system modular design facilitates the fast integration of new tasks and models, enhancing its flexibility and scalability for various applications.