# Rethinking Nighttime Image Deraining via Learnable Color Space Transformation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.17440 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.17440/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 36 of its 58 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 20 Oct 2025.

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

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Restormer: Efficient Transformer for High-Resolution Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.09881/) (2021)
- [BDD100K: A Diverse Driving Dataset for Heterogeneous Multitask Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.04687/) (2018)
- [Multi-Stage Progressive Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.02808/) (2021)
- [MANIQA: Multi-dimension Attention Network for No-Reference Image Quality Assessment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.08958/) (2022)
- [Deep Joint Rain Detection and Removal from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.07769/) (2016)
- [Rethinking Coarse-to-Fine Approach in Single Image Deblurring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.05054/) (2021)
- [Progressive Image Deraining Networks: A Better and Simpler Baseline](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.09221/) (2019)
- [Multi-Scale Progressive Fusion Network for Single Image Deraining](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.10985/) (2020)
- [Density-aware Single Image De-raining using a Multi-stream Dense Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.07412/) (2018)
- [From Patches to Pictures (PaQ-2-PiQ): Mapping the Perceptual Space of Picture Quality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.10088/) (2019)
- [Learning A Sparse Transformer Network for Effective Image Deraining](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11950/) (2023)
- [Attentive Generative Adversarial Network for Raindrop Removal from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10098/) (2017)
- [Underwater Image Enhancement via Medium Transmission-Guided Multi-Color Space Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.13015/) (2021)
- [A Model-driven Deep Neural Network for Single Image Rain Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.01333/) (2020)
- [Implicit Neural Representation for Cooperative Low-light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11722/) (2023)
- [Single Image Deraining: From Model-Based to Data-Driven and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.07150/) (2019)
- [Low-light Image Enhancement via Breaking Down the Darkness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.15557/) (2021)
- [Structure-Preserving Deraining with Residue Channel Prior Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.09079/) (2021)
- [Unpaired Deep Image Deraining Using Dual Contrastive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.02973/) (2021)
- [Bidirectional Multi-Scale Implicit Neural Representations for Image Deraining](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.01547/) (2024)
- [Sparse Sampling Transformer with Uncertainty-Driven Ranking for Unified Removal of Raindrops and Rain Streaks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.14153/) (2023)
- [Nighttime Dehazing with a Synthetic Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.03864/) (2020)
- [Toward Real-world Single Image Deraining: A New Benchmark and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.05514/) (2022)
- [FoundIR: Unleashing Million-scale Training Data to Advance Foundation Models for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.01427/) (2024)
- [Towards Unified Deep Image Deraining: A Survey and A New Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.03535/) (2023)
- [You Only Need One Color Space: An Efficient Network for Low-light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.05809/) (2024)
- [A Semi-supervised Nighttime Dehazing Baseline with Spatial-Frequency Aware and Realistic Brightness Constraint](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.18548/) (2024)
- [NightRain: Nighttime Video Deraining via Adaptive-Rain-Removal and Adaptive-Correction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.00729/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [FoundIR-v2: Optimizing Pre-Training Data Mixtures for Image Restoration Foundation Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.09282/) (2025)
- [Perception-Inspired Color Space Design for Photo White Balance Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.09383/) (2025)
- [UniRain: Unified Image Deraining with RAG-based Dataset Distillation and Multi-objective Reweighted Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.03967/) (2026)
- [The Second LoViF 2026 Challenge on Real-World All-in-One Image Restoration: Methods and Results](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.21118/) (2026)
- [DVANet: Degradation-aware Visual-prior Alignment Network for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.19097/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Compared to daytime image deraining, nighttime image deraining poses significant challenges due to inherent complexities of nighttime scenarios and the lack of high-quality datasets that accurately represent the coupling effect between rain and illumination. In this paper, we rethink the task of nighttime image deraining and contribute a new high-quality benchmark, HQ-NightRain, which offers higher harmony and realism compared to existing datasets. In addition, we develop an effective Color Space Transformation Network (CST-Net) for better removing complex rain from nighttime scenes. Specifically, we propose a learnable color space converter (CSC) to better facilitate rain removal in the Y channel, as nighttime rain is more pronounced in the Y channel compared to the RGB color space. To capture illumination information for guiding nighttime deraining, implicit illumination guidance is introduced enabling the learned features to improve the model's robustness in complex scenarios. Extensive experiments show the value of our dataset and the effectiveness of our method. The source code and datasets are available at https://github.com/guanqiyuan/CST-Net.