# BlobCtrl: Taming Controllable Blob for Element-level Image Editing

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.13434 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.13434/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 36 of its 63 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Mar 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 36)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [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)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Segment Anything](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02643/) (2023)
- [Emerging Properties in Self-Supervised Vision Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.14294/) (2021)
- [Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06125/) (2022)
- [Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03206/) (2024)
- [InstructPix2Pix: Learning to Follow Image Editing Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09800/) (2022)
- [Prompt-to-Prompt Image Editing with Cross Attention Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.01626/) (2022)
- [An Image is Worth One Word: Personalizing Text-to-Image Generation using Textual Inversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.01618/) (2022)
- [Expanding Performance Boundaries of Open-Source Multimodal Models with Model, Data, and Test-Time Scaling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05271/) (2024)
- [Multi-Concept Customization of Text-to-Image Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04488/) (2022)
- [MasaCtrl: Tuning-Free Mutual Self-Attention Control for Consistent Image Synthesis and Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08465/) (2023)
- [Paint by Example: Exemplar-based Image Editing with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13227/) (2022)
- [InstantID: Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.07519/) (2024)
- [AnyDoor: Zero-shot Object-level Image Customization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09481/) (2023)
- [Emu Edit: Precise Image Editing via Recognition and Generation Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.10089/) (2023)
- [BrushNet: A Plug-and-Play Image Inpainting Model with Decomposed Dual-Branch Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.06976/) (2024)
- [DragonDiffusion: Enabling Drag-style Manipulation on Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.02421/) (2023)
- [ACE++: Instruction-Based Image Creation and Editing via Context-Aware Content Filling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.02487/) (2025)
- [DiffEditor: Boosting Accuracy and Flexibility on Diffusion-based Image Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.02583/) (2024)
- [IMPRINT: Generative Object Compositing by Learning Identity-Preserving Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.10701/) (2024)
- [SeedEdit: Align Image Re-Generation to Image Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.06686/) (2024)
- [CreatiLayout: Siamese Multimodal Diffusion Transformer for Creative Layout-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03859/) (2024)
- [Image Sculpting: Precise Object Editing with 3D Geometry Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.01702/) (2024)
- [Magic Fixup: Streamlining Photo Editing by Watching Dynamic Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.13044/) (2024)
- [Compositional Text-to-Image Generation with Dense Blob Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.08246/) (2024)
- [RegionDrag: Fast Region-Based Image Editing with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.18247/) (2024)
- [InstantDrag: Improving Interactivity in Drag-based Image Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.08857/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [FireEdit: Fine-grained Instruction-based Image Editing via Region-aware Vision Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19839/) (2025)
- [BoxCtrl: 3D-Aware Visual Prompting for Geometric Image Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.23270/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

As user expectations for image editing continue to rise, the demand for flexible, fine-grained manipulation of specific visual elements presents a challenge for current diffusion-based methods. In this work, we present BlobCtrl, a framework for element-level image editing based on a probabilistic blob-based representation. Treating blobs as visual primitives, BlobCtrl disentangles layout from appearance, affording fine-grained, controllable object-level manipulation. Our key contributions are twofold: (1) an in-context dual-branch diffusion model that separates foreground and background processing, incorporating blob representations to explicitly decouple layout and appearance, and (2) a self-supervised disentangle-then-reconstruct training paradigm with an identity-preserving loss function, along with tailored strategies to efficiently leverage blob-image pairs. To foster further research, we introduce BlobData for large-scale training and BlobBench, a benchmark for systematic evaluation. Experimental results demonstrate that BlobCtrl achieves state-of-the-art performance in a variety of element-level editing tasks, such as object addition, removal, scaling, and replacement, while maintaining computational efficiency. Project Webpage: https://liyaowei-stu.github.io/project/BlobCtrl/