# PixelSmile: Toward Fine-Grained Facial Expression Editing

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.25728 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.25728/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 65 of its 87 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 Mar 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 65)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [Representation Learning with Contrastive Predictive Coding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.03748/) (2018)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [Flow Matching for Generative Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02747/) (2022)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [Analyzing and Improving the Image Quality of StyleGAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04958/) (2019)
- [FaceNet: A Unified Embedding for Face Recognition and Clustering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.03832/) (2015)
- [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)
- [SDEdit: Guided Image Synthesis and Editing with Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.01073/) (2021)
- [StarGAN v2: Diverse Image Synthesis for Multiple Domains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01865/) (2019)
- [Qwen-Image Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.02324/) (2025)
- [StarGAN: Unified Generative Adversarial Networks for Multi-Domain Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.09020/) (2017)
- [FLUX.1 Kontext: Flow Matching for In-Context Image Generation and Editing in Latent Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.15742/) (2025)
- [Interpreting the Latent Space of GANs for Semantic Face Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.10786/) (2019)
- [GANSpace: Discovering Interpretable GAN Controls](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.02546/) (2020)
- [Symmetric Cross Entropy for Robust Learning with Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.06112/) (2019)
- [AffectNet: A Database for Facial Expression, Valence, and Arousal Computing in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.03985/) (2017)
- [Deep Metric Learning via Lifted Structured Feature Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.06452/) (2015)
- [Step1X-Edit: A Practical Framework for General Image Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.17761/) (2025)
- [Closed-Form Factorization of Latent Semantics in GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.06600/) (2020)
- [AdaFace: Quality Adaptive Margin for Face Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.00964/) (2022)
- [EMOCA: Emotion Driven Monocular Face Capture and Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.11312/) (2022)
- [CelebV-HQ: A Large-Scale Video Facial Attributes Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12393/) (2022)
- [GANimation: Anatomically-aware Facial Animation from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.09251/) (2018)
- [Training Deep Networks for Facial Expression Recognition with Crowd-Sourced Label Distribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.01041/) (2016)
- [Concept Sliders: LoRA Adaptors for Precise Control in Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12092/) (2023)
- [PuLID: Pure and Lightning ID Customization via Contrastive Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16022/) (2024)

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

- [Barycentric Guidance: Turning Foundation Image Editors into Continuous Affective Controllers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.16892/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Fine-grained facial expression editing has long been limited by intrinsic semantic overlap. To address this, we construct the Flex Facial Expression (FFE) dataset with continuous affective annotations and establish FFE-Bench to evaluate structural confusion, editing accuracy, linear controllability, and the trade-off between expression editing and identity preservation. We propose PixelSmile, a diffusion framework that disentangles expression semantics via fully symmetric joint training. PixelSmile combines intensity supervision with contrastive learning to produce stronger and more distinguishable expressions, achieving precise and stable linear expression control through textual latent interpolation. Extensive experiments demonstrate that PixelSmile achieves superior disentanglement and robust identity preservation, confirming its effectiveness for continuous, controllable, and fine-grained expression editing, while naturally supporting smooth expression blending.