mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Personalized Preference Fine-tuning of Diffusion Models

arXiv 2501.06655 ↗First posted 11 Jan 2025cs.LG cs.CVcited by 22

On the map: Diffusion models → Diffusion and flow policies for robotics

also in 1 more
Abstract (arXiv)

RLHF techniques like DPO can significantly improve the generation quality of text-to-image diffusion models. However, these methods optimize for a single reward that aligns model generation with population-level preferences, neglecting the nuances of individual users' beliefs or values. This lack of personalization limits the efficacy of these models. To bridge this gap, we introduce PPD, a multi-reward optimization objective that aligns diffusion models with personalized preferences. With PPD, a diffusion model learns the individual preferences of a population of users in a few-shot way, enabling generalization to unseen users. Specifically, our approach (1) leverages a vision-language model (VLM) to extract personal preference embeddings from a small set of pairwise preference examples, and then (2) incorporates the embeddings into diffusion models through cross attention. Conditioning on user embeddings, the text-to-image models are fine-tuned with the DPO objective, simultaneously optimizing for alignment with the preferences of multiple users. Empirical results demonstrate that our method effectively optimizes for multiple reward functions and can interpolate between them during inference. In real-world user scenarios, with as few as four preference examples from a new user, our approach achieves an average win rate of 76% over Stable Cascade, generating images that more accurately reflect specific user preferences.

Key facts. Cited by 22 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Diffusion and flow policies for robotics, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 43 of its 55 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 11 Jan 2025.

Builds on

43 of 55 references.

Closest ancestors · 8

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2024Aligning Diffusion Models by Optimizing Human Utility6 Apr
  2. 2024Large-scale Reinforcement Learning for Diffusion Models20 Jan
  3. 2023Using Human Feedback to Fine-tune Diffusion Models without Any Reward Model22 Nov
  4. 2023Diffusion Model Alignment Using Direct Preference Optimization21 Nov
  5. 2023Aligning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Reward Backpropagation5 Oct
  6. 2023Directly Fine-Tuning Diffusion Models on Differentiable Rewards29 Sep
  7. 2023Training Diffusion Models with Reinforcement Learning22 May
  8. 2023Human Preference Score: Better Aligning Text-to-Image Models with Human Preference25 Mar

Other references · 35

  1. 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,744
  2. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 21,076
  3. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,863
  4. 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,396
  5. 2022Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 12,459
  6. 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Modelscited by 9,781
  7. 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 9,122
  8. 2023Direct Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward Modelcited by 8,065
  9. 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,058
  10. 2022Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latentscited by 6,585
  11. 2022Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understandingcited by 6,355
  12. 2023Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 5,503
23 more
  1. 2022Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Reasonerscited by 4,374
  2. 2023SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,356
  3. 2024Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,181
  4. 2022LAION-5B: An open large-scale dataset for training next generation image-text modelscited by 4,152
  5. 2019Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distributioncited by 4,101
  6. 2024LLaVA-OneVision: Easy Visual Task Transfercited by 2,719
  7. 2023IP-Adapter: Text Compatible Image Prompt Adapter for Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 1,464
  8. 2023T2I-Adapter: Learning Adapters to Dig out More Controllable Ability for Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 1,351
  9. 2022Scaling Autoregressive Models for Content-Rich Text-to-Image Generationcited by 1,295
  10. 2021Variational Diffusion Modelscited by 1,153
  11. 2023Pick-a-Pic: An Open Dataset of User Preferences for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 977
  12. 2023Human Preference Score v2: A Solid Benchmark for Evaluating Human Preferences of Text-to-Image Synthesiscited by 890
  13. 2023Whose Opinions Do Language Models Reflect?cited by 773
  14. 2023Aligning Text-to-Image Models using Human Feedbackcited by 422
  15. 2023Emu: Enhancing Image Generation Models Using Photogenic Needles in a Haystackcited by 279
  16. 2023Secrets of RLHF in Large Language Models Part I: PPOcited by 229
  17. 2024A Roadmap to Pluralistic Alignmentcited by 184
  18. 2024Personalizing Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback with Variational Preference Learningcited by 155
  19. 2024Personalized Language Modeling from Personalized Human Feedbackcited by 132
  20. 2024Prometheus-Vision: Vision-Language Model as a Judge for Fine-Grained Evaluationcited by 125
  21. 2024Modular Pluralism: Pluralistic Alignment via Multi-LLM Collaborationcited by 113
  22. 2024MJ-Bench: Is Your Multimodal Reward Model Really a Good Judge for Text-to-Image Generation?cited by 66
  23. 2023A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Principled Recaptioning Improves Image Generationcited by 41

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 13; 2026: 9.

22 papers.

Sort:

By area:

  1. 2026JavisDiT++: Unified Modeling and Optimization for Joint Audio-Video Generationcited by 25
  2. 2025Direct Alignment with Heterogeneous Preferencescited by 19
  3. 2025Simulating the Visual World with Artificial Intelligence: A Roadmapcited by 15
  4. 2025Integrating Reinforcement Learning with Visual Generative Models: Foundations and Advancescited by 12
  5. 2025Towards Better Optimization For Listwise Preference in Diffusion Modelscited by 7
  6. 2025Personalized Image Editing in Text-to-Image Diffusion Models via Collaborative Direct Preference Optimizationcited by 7
  7. 2025Personalized Reward Modeling for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 4
  8. 2025Alignment and Safety of Diffusion Models via Reinforcement Learning and Reward Modeling: A Surveycited by 3
  9. 2025DialectGen: Benchmarking and Improving Dialect Robustness in Multimodal Generationcited by 3
  10. 2026Premier: Personalized Preference Modulation with Learnable User Embedding in Text-to-Image Generationcited by 3
  11. 2025Reg-DPO: SFT-Regularized Direct Preference Optimization with GT-Pair for Improving Video Generationcited by 2
  12. 2026ParetoSlider: Diffusion Models Post-Training for Continuous Reward Controlcited by 2
10 more
  1. 2025Personalized Image Generation for Recommendations Beyond Catalogscited by 1
  2. 2025Personalized Safety Alignment for Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 1
  3. 2025Coffee: Controllable Diffusion Fine-tuningcited by 1
  4. 2026Beyond Text Prompts: Precise Concept Erasure through Text-Image Collaborationcited by 1
  5. 2026Offline Preference Optimization for Rectified Flow with Noise-Tracked Pairscited by 1
  6. 2025Unified Control for Inference-Time Guidance of Denoising Diffusion Modelscited by 0
  7. 2026Visual Personalization Turing Testcited by 0
  8. 2026Personalizing Text-to-Image Generation to Individual Tastecited by 0
  9. 2026PALATE: Personalized Aesthetic Learning through Adaptive Taste Evolution for Multi-User Portrait Retouchingcited by 0
  10. 2026ExploreNet: Learning Where to Explore in Diffusion GRPOcited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2024Aligning Diffusion Models with Noise-Conditioned Perception
  2. 2025PC-Diffusion: Aligning Diffusion Models with Human Preferences via Preference Classifier
  3. 2026Personalize at Test Time: Learning User Preferences for Image Generation
  4. 2025Rethinking Direct Preference Optimization in Diffusion Models
  5. 2026Rethinking Preference Alignment for Diffusion Models with Classifier-Free Guidance
  6. 2025Diffusion-SDPO: Safeguarded Direct Preference Optimization for Diffusion Models
  7. 2025PrefGen: Multimodal Preference Learning for Preference-Conditioned Image Generation
  8. 2025Divergence Minimization Preference Optimization for Diffusion Model Alignment