# RefSTAR: Blind Facial Image Restoration with Reference Selection, Transfer, and Reconstruction

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.10470 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.10470/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 39 of its 47 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Jul 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 39)

- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.00667/) (2022)
- [Deep Learning Face Attributes in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.7766/) (2014)
- [Analyzing and Improving the Image Quality of StyleGAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04958/) (2019)
- [DreamBooth: Fine Tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Subject-Driven Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12242/) (2022)
- [Taming Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.09841/) (2020)
- [IP-Adapter: Text Compatible Image Prompt Adapter for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.06721/) (2023)
- [MUSIQ: Multi-scale Image Quality Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.05997/) (2021)
- [Real-ESRGAN: Training Real-World Blind Super-Resolution with Pure Synthetic Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.10833/) (2021)
- [Animate Anyone: Consistent and Controllable Image-to-Video Synthesis for Character Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17117/) (2023)
- [Towards Real-World Blind Face Restoration with Generative Facial Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.04061/) (2021)
- [One-Step Effective Diffusion Network for Real-World Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.08177/) (2024)
- [Towards Robust Blind Face Restoration with Codebook Lookup Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.11253/) (2022)
- [GAN Prior Embedded Network for Blind Face Restoration in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.06070/) (2021)
- [FSRNet: End-to-End Learning Face Super-Resolution with Facial Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10703/) (2017)
- [Blind Face Restoration via Deep Multi-scale Component Dictionaries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.00418/) (2020)
- [Arc2Face: A Foundation Model for ID-Consistent Human Faces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11641/) (2024)
- [Progressive Semantic-Aware Style Transformation for Blind Face Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.08709/) (2020)
- [DifFace: Blind Face Restoration with Diffused Error Contraction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.06512/) (2022)
- [Learning Warped Guidance for Blind Face Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.04829/) (2018)
- [RestoreFormer: High-Quality Blind Face Restoration from Undegraded Key-Value Pairs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.06374/) (2022)
- [Deep Semantic Face Deblurring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.03345/) (2018)
- [Progressive Face Super-Resolution via Attention to Facial Landmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.08239/) (2019)
- [HiFaceGAN: Face Renovation via Collaborative Suppression and Replenishment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.05005/) (2020)
- [Inserting Anybody in Diffusion Models via Celeb Basis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.00926/) (2023)
- [Super-FAN: Integrated facial landmark localization and super-resolution of real-world low resolution faces in arbitrary poses with GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.02765/) (2017)
- [PGDiff: Guiding Diffusion Models for Versatile Face Restoration via Partial Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.10810/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Face2Scene: Using Facial Degradation as an Oracle for Diffusion-Based Scene Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.16570/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Blind facial image restoration is highly challenging due to unknown complex degradations and the sensitivity of humans to faces. Although existing methods introduce auxiliary information from generative priors or high-quality reference images, they still struggle with identity preservation problems, mainly due to improper feature introduction on detailed textures. In this paper, we focus on effectively incorporating appropriate features from high-quality reference images, presenting a novel blind facial image restoration method that considers reference selection, transfer, and reconstruction (RefSTAR). In terms of selection, we construct a reference selection (RefSel) module. For training the RefSel module, we construct a RefSel-HQ dataset through a mask generation pipeline, which contains annotating masks for 10,000 ground truth-reference pairs. As for the transfer, due to the trivial solution in vanilla cross-attention operations, a feature fusion paradigm is designed to force the features from the reference to be integrated. Finally, we propose a reference image reconstruction mechanism that further ensures the presence of reference image features in the output image. The cycle consistency loss is also redesigned in conjunction with the mask. Extensive experiments on various backbone models demonstrate superior performance, showing better identity preservation ability and reference feature transfer quality. Source code, dataset, and pre-trained models are available at https://github.com/yinzhicun/RefSTAR.