# Efficient Diffusion as Low Light Enhancer

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.12346 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.12346/

## Key facts

- Cited by 13 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 29 of its 45 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Oct 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [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)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [DreamBooth: Fine Tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Subject-Driven Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12242/) (2022)
- [DPM-Solver: A Fast ODE Solver for Diffusion Probabilistic Model Sampling in Around 10 Steps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00927/) (2022)
- [Consistency Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.01469/) (2023)
- [Restormer: Efficient Transformer for High-Resolution Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.09881/) (2021)
- [Image Super-Resolution via Iterative Refinement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.07636/) (2021)
- [Uformer: A General U-Shaped Transformer for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.03106/) (2021)
- [On Distillation of Guided Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03142/) (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)
- [Learning to See in the Dark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.01934/) (2018)
- [Consistency Trajectory Models: Learning Probability Flow ODE Trajectory of Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.02279/) (2023)
- [Kindling the Darkness: A Practical Low-light Image Enhancer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.04161/) (2019)
- [Knowledge Distillation in Iterative Generative Models for Improved Sampling Speed](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.02388/) (2021)
- [Retinexformer: One-stage Retinex-based Transformer for Low-light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.06705/) (2023)
- [SnapFusion: Text-to-Image Diffusion Model on Mobile Devices within Two Seconds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.00980/) (2023)
- [Low-Light Image Enhancement with Normalizing Flow](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.05923/) (2021)
- [Ultra-High-Definition Low-Light Image Enhancement: A Benchmark and Transformer-Based Method](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.11548/) (2022)
- [Learning Image-adaptive 3D Lookup Tables for High Performance Photo Enhancement in Real-time](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.14468/) (2020)
- [Learning Enriched Features for Fast Image Restoration and Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.01649/) (2022)
- [Low-Light Image Enhancement with Wavelet-based Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.00306/) (2023)
- [Diff-Retinex: Rethinking Low-light Image Enhancement with A Generative Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.13164/) (2023)
- [Global Structure-Aware Diffusion Process for Low-Light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.17577/) (2023)
- [Pyramid Diffusion Models For Low-light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.10028/) (2023)
- [ControlStyle: Text-Driven Stylized Image Generation Using Diffusion Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.05463/) (2023)
- [CLE Diffusion: Controllable Light Enhancement Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.06725/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 13 of 13)

- [Dereflection Any Image with Diffusion Priors and Diversified Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.17347/) (2025)
- [Group Editing: Edit Multiple Images in One Go](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.22883/) (2026)
- [NTIRE 2026 3D Restoration and Reconstruction in Real-world Adverse Conditions: RealX3D Challenge Results](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.04135/) (2026)
- [Paper2Rebuttal: A Multi-Agent Framework for Transparent Author Response Assistance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.14171/) (2026)
- [Human-Agent Collaborative Paper-to-Page Crafting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.19600/) (2025)
- [FAPE-IR: Frequency-Aware Planning and Execution Framework for All-in-One Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.14099/) (2025)
- [GMODiff: One-Step Gain Map Refinement with Diffusion Priors for HDR Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.16357/) (2025)
- [Breaking Degradation Coupling: A Structural Entropy Guided Decoupled Framework and Benchmark for Infrared Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.22886/) (2026)
- [Diffusion Models for Low-Light Image Enhancement: A Multi-Perspective Taxonomy and Performance Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.05976/) (2025)
- [Consist-Retinex: One-Step Noise-Emphasized Consistency Training Accelerates High-Quality Retinex Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.08982/) (2025)
- [Nighttime Hazy Image Enhancement via Progressively and Mutually Reinforcing Night-Haze Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.01998/) (2026)
- [WREN: Low Light Image Enhancement Using Retinex theory-based Double U-Net-like Structures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.15604/) (2026)
- [Not All Prompts Are Equal: Exploration-Guided Prompt Scaffolding for Multimodal Reinforcement Post-Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.15051/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The computational burden of the iterative sampling process remains a major challenge in diffusion-based Low-Light Image Enhancement (LLIE). Current acceleration methods, whether training-based or training-free, often lead to significant performance degradation, highlighting the trade-off between performance and efficiency. In this paper, we identify two primary factors contributing to performance degradation: fitting errors and the inference gap. Our key insight is that fitting errors can be mitigated by linearly extrapolating the incorrect score functions, while the inference gap can be reduced by shifting the Gaussian flow to a reflectance-aware residual space. Based on the above insights, we design Reflectance-Aware Trajectory Refinement (RATR) module, a simple yet effective module to refine the teacher trajectory using the reflectance component of images. Following this, we introduce Reflectance-aware Diffusion with Distilled Trajectory (ReDDiT), an efficient and flexible distillation framework tailored for LLIE. Our framework achieves comparable performance to previous diffusion-based methods with redundant steps in just 2 steps while establishing new state-of-the-art (SOTA) results with 8 or 4 steps. Comprehensive experimental evaluations on 10 benchmark datasets validate the effectiveness of our method, consistently outperforming existing SOTA methods.