# Show and Polish: Reference-Guided Identity Preservation in Face Video Restoration

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.10293 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.10293/

## Key facts

- Cited by 12 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 46 of its 73 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Jul 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 46)

- [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)
- [Analyzing and Improving the Image Quality of StyleGAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04958/) (2019)
- [Exploring CLIP for Assessing the Look and Feel of Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12396/) (2022)
- [Video Enhancement with Task-Oriented Flow](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.09078/) (2017)
- [EDVR: Video Restoration with Enhanced Deformable Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.02716/) (2019)
- [InstantID: Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.07519/) (2024)
- [PULSE: Self-Supervised Photo Upsampling via Latent Space Exploration of Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.03808/) (2020)
- [I2VGen-XL: High-Quality Image-to-Video Synthesis via Cascaded Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.04145/) (2023)
- [Towards Real-World Blind Face Restoration with Generative Facial Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.04061/) (2021)
- [PhotoMaker: Customizing Realistic Human Photos via Stacked ID Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.04461/) (2023)
- [FastComposer: Tuning-Free Multi-Subject Image Generation with Localized Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.10431/) (2023)
- [MACE: Mass Concept Erasure in Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.06135/) (2024)
- [Blind Image Quality Assessment via Vision-Language Correspondence: A Multitask Learning Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14968/) (2023)
- [Learning Blind Video Temporal Consistency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.00449/) (2018)
- [Towards Robust Blind Face Restoration with Codebook Lookup Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.11253/) (2022)
- [Exploiting Deep Generative Prior for Versatile Image Restoration and Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.13659/) (2020)
- [GAN Prior Embedded Network for Blind Face Restoration in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.06070/) (2021)
- [TF-ICON: Diffusion-Based Training-Free Cross-Domain Image Composition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.12493/) (2023)
- [Recurrent Video Restoration Transformer with Guided Deformable Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.02146/) (2022)
- [GLEAN: Generative Latent Bank for Large-Factor Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.00739/) (2020)
- [Video Super-Resolution with Recurrent Structure-Detail Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.00455/) (2020)
- [VQFR: Blind Face Restoration with Vector-Quantized Dictionary and Parallel Decoder](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.06803/) (2022)
- [Robust Watermarking Using Generative Priors Against Image Editing: From Benchmarking to Advances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.18775/) (2024)
- [EraseAnything: Enabling Concept Erasure in Rectified Flow Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.20413/) (2024)
- [RestoreFormer: High-Quality Blind Face Restoration from Undegraded Key-Value Pairs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.06374/) (2022)
- [Video Super-resolution with Temporal Group Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.10595/) (2020)
- [HiFaceGAN: Face Renovation via Collaborative Suppression and Replenishment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.05005/) (2020)
- [VEnhancer: Generative Space-Time Enhancement for Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.07667/) (2024)
- [Set You Straight: Auto-Steering Denoising Trajectories to Sidestep Unwanted Concepts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.12782/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [BIFE: Better Interaction, Fewer Errors for Minute-Long Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.22973/) (2025)
- [PSR: Scaling Multi-Subject Personalized Image Generation with Pairwise Subject-Consistency Rewards](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.01236/) (2025)
- [Inferix: A Block-Diffusion based Next-Generation Inference Engine for World Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.20714/) (2025)
- [Diffusion-Based Image Editing: An Unforeseen Adversary to Robust Invisible Watermarks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.05598/) (2025)
- [TAP: Parameter-efficient Task-Aware Prompting for Adverse Weather Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.07878/) (2025)
- [Editing on the Generative Manifold: A Theoretical and Empirical Study of General Diffusion-Based Image Editing Trade-offs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.29736/) (2026)
- [FADE: Adversarial Concept Erasure in Flow Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.12283/) (2025)
- [Robust Concept Erasure in Diffusion Models: A Theoretical Perspective on Security and Robustness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.12024/) (2025)
- [When Denoising Becomes Unsigning: Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Watermark Fragility Under Diffusion-Based Image Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.04696/) (2026)
- [Editing Away the Evidence: Diffusion-Based Image Manipulation and the Failure Modes of Robust Watermarking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.12949/) (2026)
- [RGFVR: Reference-Guided Face Video Restoration with Flow Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.16401/) (2026)
- [TIGER: Taming Identity, Geometry, and Generative Priors for High-Quality Face Video Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.24336/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Face Video Restoration (FVR) aims to recover high-quality face videos from degraded versions. Traditional methods struggle to preserve fine-grained, identity-specific features when degradation is severe, often producing average-looking faces that lack individual characteristics. To address these challenges, we introduce IP-FVR, a novel method that leverages a high-quality reference face image as a visual prompt to provide identity conditioning during the denoising process. IP-FVR incorporates semantically rich identity information from the reference image using decoupled cross-attention mechanisms, ensuring detailed and identity consistent results. For intra-clip identity drift (within 24 frames), we introduce an identity-preserving feedback learning method that combines cosine similarity-based reward signals with suffix-weighted temporal aggregation. This approach effectively minimizes drift within sequences of frames. For inter-clip identity drift, we develop an exponential blending strategy that aligns identities across clips by iteratively blending frames from previous clips during the denoising process. This method ensures consistent identity representation across different clips. Additionally, we enhance the restoration process with a multi-stream negative prompt, guiding the model's attention to relevant facial attributes and minimizing the generation of low-quality or incorrect features. Extensive experiments on both synthetic and real-world datasets demonstrate that IP-FVR outperforms existing methods in both quality and identity preservation, showcasing its substantial potential for practical applications in face video restoration.