# CtrLoRA: An Extensible and Efficient Framework for Controllable Image Generation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.09400 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.09400/

## Key facts

- Cited by 21 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Image generation, text-to-image and editing, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 33 of its 43 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Oct 2024.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Image generation, text-to-image and editing](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/image-generation-text-to-image-and-editing/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 33)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.0312/) (2014)
- [Exploring the Limits of Transfer Learning with a Unified Text-to-Text Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.10683/) (2019)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.03585/) (2015)
- [Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06125/) (2022)
- [Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11487/) (2022)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12598/) (2022)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03206/) (2024)
- [LAION-5B: An open large-scale dataset for training next generation image-text models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.08402/) (2022)
- [Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.05600/) (2019)
- [GLIDE: Towards Photorealistic Image Generation and Editing with Text-Guided Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10741/) (2021)
- [T2I-Adapter: Learning Adapters to Dig out More Controllable Ability for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.08453/) (2023)
- [eDiff-I: Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with an Ensemble of Expert Denoisers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.01324/) (2022)
- [PixArt-α: Fast Training of Diffusion Transformer for Photorealistic Text-to-Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.00426/) (2023)
- [GLIGEN: Open-Set Grounded Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.07093/) (2023)
- [Score-based Generative Modeling in Latent Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05931/) (2021)
- [All are Worth Words: A ViT Backbone for Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.12152/) (2022)
- [Uni-ControlNet: All-in-One Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.16322/) (2023)
- [Attentive Generative Adversarial Network for Raindrop Removal from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10098/) (2017)
- [UniControl: A Unified Diffusion Model for Controllable Visual Generation In the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11147/) (2023)
- [RAPHAEL: Text-to-Image Generation via Large Mixture of Diffusion Paths](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.18295/) (2023)
- [Ctrl-Adapter: An Efficient and Versatile Framework for Adapting Diverse Controls to Any Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.09967/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 21 of 21)

- [FullDiT: Multi-Task Video Generative Foundation Model with Full Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19907/) (2025)
- [DreamRenderer: Taming Multi-Instance Attribute Control in Large-Scale Text-to-Image Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.12885/) (2025)
- [BideDPO: Conditional Image Generation with Simultaneous Text and Condition Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.19268/) (2025)
- [DivControl: Knowledge Diversion for Controllable Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.23620/) (2025)
- [Jodi: Unification of Visual Generation and Understanding via Joint Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.19084/) (2025)
- [RefineAnything: Multimodal Region-Specific Refinement for Perfect Local Details](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.06870/) (2026)
- [Efficient Text-Guided Convolutional Adapter for the Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.14514/) (2026)
- [UNITY: Attention Flow Networks for Adaptive Conditioning in Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.20971/) (2026)
- [G2PDiffusion: Cross-Species Genotype-to-Phenotype Prediction via Evolutionary Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.04684/) (2025)
- [DGAE: Diffusion-Guided Autoencoder for Efficient Latent Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.09644/) (2025)
- [StyleQoRA: Quality-Aware Low-Rank Adaptation for Few-Shot Multi-Style Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.11236/) (2025)
- [FitControler: Toward Fit-Aware Virtual Try-On](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.24016/) (2025)
- [Heeding the Inner Voice: Aligning ControlNet Training via Intermediate Features Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.02321/) (2025)
- [Example-Based Feature Painting on Textures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.01513/) (2025)
- [Knowledge Diversion for Efficient Morphology Control and Policy Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.09796/) (2025)
- [RealCamo: Boosting Real Camouflage Synthesis with Layout Controls and Textual-Visual Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.22974/) (2025)
- [FastFace: Tuning Identity Preservation in Distilled Diffusion via Guidance and Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.21144/) (2025)
- [RichControl: Structure- and Appearance-Rich Training-Free Spatial Control for Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.02792/) (2025)
- [Structure-Guided Histopathology Synthesis via Dual-LoRA Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.04565/) (2026)
- [FlowBender: Feedback-Aware Training for Self-Correcting Conditional Flows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.20404/) (2026)
- [ReaDiT Guidance: Control for Image and Video Generation using Diffusion Transformer Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.04649/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recently, large-scale diffusion models have made impressive progress in text-to-image (T2I) generation. To further equip these T2I models with fine-grained spatial control, approaches like ControlNet introduce an extra network that learns to follow a condition image. However, for every single condition type, ControlNet requires independent training on millions of data pairs with hundreds of GPU hours, which is quite expensive and makes it challenging for ordinary users to explore and develop new types of conditions. To address this problem, we propose the CtrLoRA framework, which trains a Base ControlNet to learn the common knowledge of image-to-image generation from multiple base conditions, along with condition-specific LoRAs to capture distinct characteristics of each condition. Utilizing our pretrained Base ControlNet, users can easily adapt it to new conditions, requiring as few as 1,000 data pairs and less than one hour of single-GPU training to obtain satisfactory results in most scenarios. Moreover, our CtrLoRA reduces the learnable parameters by 90% compared to ControlNet, significantly lowering the threshold to distribute and deploy the model weights. Extensive experiments on various types of conditions demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our method. Codes and model weights will be released at https://github.com/xyfJASON/ctrlora.