# DocShaDiffusion: Diffusion Model in Latent Space for Document Image Shadow Removal

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.01422 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.01422/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in 3D, point cloud and scene generation, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 34 of its 60 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Jul 2025.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [3D, point cloud and scene generation](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/3d-point-cloud-and-scene-generation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 34)

- [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)
- [Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09672/) (2021)
- [Image Super-Resolution via Iterative Refinement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.07636/) (2021)
- [RePaint: Inpainting using Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.09865/) (2022)
- [Palette: Image-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.05826/) (2021)
- [Denoising Diffusion Restoration Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11793/) (2022)
- [Simple Baselines for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.04676/) (2022)
- [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)
- [Refusion: Enabling Large-Size Realistic Image Restoration with Latent-Space Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08291/) (2023)
- [DC-ShadowNet: Single-Image Hard and Soft Shadow Removal Using Unsupervised Domain-Classifier Guided Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.10434/) (2022)
- [Unsupervised Learning for Intrinsic Image Decomposition from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.09930/) (2019)
- [CRoSS: Diffusion Model Makes Controllable, Robust and Secure Image Steganography](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.16936/) (2023)
- [Document Rectification and Illumination Correction using a Patch-based CNN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.09470/) (2019)
- [DocDiff: Document Enhancement via Residual Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.03892/) (2023)
- [High-Resolution Document Shadow Removal via A Large-Scale Real-World Dataset and A Frequency-Aware Shadow Erasing Net](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.14221/) (2023)
- [Revisiting Shadow Detection: A New Benchmark Dataset for Complex World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.06998/) (2019)
- [Learning from Synthetic Shadows for Shadow Detection and Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.01713/) (2021)
- [Instance Shadow Detection with A Single-Stage Detector](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.04614/) (2022)
- [Water-Filling: An Efficient Algorithm for Digitized Document Shadow Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.09763/) (2019)
- [Frequency Compensated Diffusion Model for Real-scene Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.10510/) (2023)
- [ShaDocNet: Learning Spatial-Aware Tokens in Transformer for Document Shadow Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.16675/) (2022)
- [UDoc-GAN: Unpaired Document Illumination Correction with Background Light Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.08216/) (2022)
- [DocDeshadower: Frequency-Aware Transformer for Document Shadow Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.15318/) (2023)
- [A Survey on Deep learning based Document Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.02719/) (2021)
- [Light-weight Document Image Cleanup using Perceptual Loss](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.09076/) (2021)
- [Unsupervised Shadow Removal Using Target Consistency Generative Adversarial Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.01291/) (2020)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Document shadow removal is a crucial task in the field of document image enhancement. However, existing methods tend to remove shadows with constant color background and ignore color shadows. In this paper, we first design a diffusion model in latent space for document image shadow removal, called DocShaDiffusion. It translates shadow images from pixel space to latent space, enabling the model to more easily capture essential features. To address the issue of color shadows, we design a shadow soft-mask generation module (SSGM). It is able to produce accurate shadow mask and add noise into shadow regions specially. Guided by the shadow mask, a shadow mask-aware guided diffusion module (SMGDM) is proposed to remove shadows from document images by supervising the diffusion and denoising process. We also propose a shadow-robust perceptual feature loss to preserve details and structures in document images. Moreover, we develop a large-scale synthetic document color shadow removal dataset (SDCSRD). It simulates the distribution of realistic color shadows and provides powerful supports for the training of models. Experiments on three public datasets validate the proposed method's superiority over state-of-the-art. Our code and dataset will be publicly available.