# MetaShadow: Object-Centered Shadow Detection, Removal, and Synthesis

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.02635 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.02635/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 40 of its 67 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 Dec 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 40)

- [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)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [V-Net: Fully Convolutional Neural Networks for Volumetric Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04797/) (2016)
- [Imagic: Text-Based Real Image Editing with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.09276/) (2022)
- [eDiff-I: Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with an Ensemble of Expert Denoisers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.01324/) (2022)
- [GLIGEN: Open-Set Grounded Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.07093/) (2023)
- [Paint by Example: Exemplar-based Image Editing with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13227/) (2022)
- [AnyDoor: Zero-shot Object-level Image Customization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09481/) (2023)
- [Stacked Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks for Jointly Learning Shadow Detection and Shadow Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.02478/) (2017)
- [Towards Ghost-free Shadow Removal via Dual Hierarchical Aggregation Network and Shadow Matting GAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.08718/) (2019)
- [ShadowDiffusion: When Degradation Prior Meets Diffusion Model for Shadow Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04711/) (2022)
- [Shadow Removal via Shadow Image Decomposition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.08628/) (2019)
- [Mask-ShadowGAN: Learning to Remove Shadows from Unpaired Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.10683/) (2019)
- [ObjectDrop: Bootstrapping Counterfactuals for Photorealistic Object Removal and Insertion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.18818/) (2024)
- [DC-ShadowNet: Single-Image Hard and Soft Shadow Removal Using Unsupervised Domain-Classifier Guided Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.10434/) (2022)
- [Making Images Real Again: A Comprehensive Survey on Deep Image Composition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.14490/) (2021)
- [Direction-aware Spatial Context Features for Shadow Detection and Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.04635/) (2018)
- [Direction-aware Spatial Context Features for Shadow Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.04142/) (2017)
- [From Shadow Generation to Shadow Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.12997/) (2021)
- [ARGAN: Attentive Recurrent Generative Adversarial Network for Shadow Detection and Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.01323/) (2019)
- [CM-GAN: Image Inpainting with Cascaded Modulation GAN and Object-Aware Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11947/) (2022)
- [CANet: A Context-Aware Network for Shadow Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.09894/) (2021)
- [A+D Net: Training a Shadow Detector with Adversarial Shadow Attenuation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.01361/) (2017)
- [Instance Shadow Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.07034/) (2019)
- [Shadow Generation for Composite Image in Real-world Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.10338/) (2021)
- [ShadowFormer: Global Context Helps Image Shadow Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.01650/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [OmniPaint: Mastering Object-Oriented Editing via Disentangled Insertion-Removal Inpainting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.08677/) (2025)
- [Cast and Attached Shadow Detection via Iterative Light and Geometry Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.06179/) (2025)
- [MultiShadow: Multi-Object Shadow Generation for Image Compositing via Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.02743/) (2026)
- [You Only Erase Once: Erasing Anything without Bringing Unexpected Content](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.27599/) (2026)
- [PredErase: Training-Free Object-and-Effect Removal with Predictive Latent Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.00956/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Shadows are often under-considered or even ignored in image editing applications, limiting the realism of the edited results. In this paper, we introduce MetaShadow, a three-in-one versatile framework that enables detection, removal, and controllable synthesis of shadows in natural images in an object-centered fashion. MetaShadow combines the strengths of two cooperative components: Shadow Analyzer, for object-centered shadow detection and removal, and Shadow Synthesizer, for reference-based controllable shadow synthesis. Notably, we optimize the learning of the intermediate features from Shadow Analyzer to guide Shadow Synthesizer to generate more realistic shadows that blend seamlessly with the scene. Extensive evaluations on multiple shadow benchmark datasets show significant improvements of MetaShadow over the existing state-of-the-art methods on object-centered shadow detection, removal, and synthesis. MetaShadow excels in image-editing tasks such as object removal, relocation, and insertion, pushing the boundaries of object-centered image editing.