# Degradation-Aware and Structure-Preserving Diffusion for Real-World Image Super-Resolution

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.11470 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.11470/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Inverse problems and image restoration, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 30 of its 38 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 13 Apr 2026.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Inverse problems and image restoration](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/inverse-problems-and-image-restoration/)

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

- [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)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09672/) (2021)
- [Photo-Realistic Single Image Super-Resolution Using a Generative Adversarial Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.04802/) (2016)
- [Enhanced Deep Residual Networks for Single Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.02921/) (2017)
- [Image Super-Resolution via Iterative Refinement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.07636/) (2021)
- [ESRGAN: Enhanced Super-Resolution Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.00219/) (2018)
- [Image Super-Resolution Using Deep Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1501.00092/) (2014)
- [MUSIQ: Multi-scale Image Quality Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.05997/) (2021)
- [Exploring CLIP for Assessing the Look and Feel of Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12396/) (2022)
- [Real-ESRGAN: Training Real-World Blind Super-Resolution with Pure Synthetic Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.10833/) (2021)
- [Denoising Diffusion Restoration Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11793/) (2022)
- [Accurate Image Super-Resolution Using Very Deep Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.04587/) (2015)
- [The Perception-Distortion Tradeoff](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.06077/) (2017)
- [Designing a Practical Degradation Model for Deep Blind Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14006/) (2021)
- [Exploiting Diffusion Prior for Real-World Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.07015/) (2023)
- [SRDiff: Single Image Super-Resolution with Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.14951/) (2021)
- [Toward Real-World Single Image Super-Resolution: A New Benchmark and A New Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.00523/) (2019)
- [ResShift: Efficient Diffusion Model for Image Super-resolution by Residual Shifting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.12348/) (2023)
- [SeeSR: Towards Semantics-Aware Real-World Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16518/) (2023)
- [Pixel-Aware Stable Diffusion for Realistic Image Super-resolution and Personalized Stylization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.14469/) (2023)
- [One-Step Effective Diffusion Network for Real-World Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.08177/) (2024)
- [SinSR: Diffusion-Based Image Super-Resolution in a Single Step](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.14760/) (2023)
- [Image Restoration with Mean-Reverting Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.11699/) (2023)
- [The 2018 PIRM Challenge on Perceptual Image Super-resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.07517/) (2018)
- [Pixel-level and Semantic-level Adjustable Super-resolution: A Dual-LoRA Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03017/) (2024)
- [Arbitrary-steps Image Super-resolution via Diffusion Inversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.09013/) (2024)
- [Image Restoration by Denoising Diffusion Models with Iteratively Preconditioned Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.16519/) (2023)
- [BlindDiff: Empowering Degradation Modelling in Diffusion Models for Blind Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.10211/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Real-world image super-resolution is particularly challenging for diffusion models because real degradations are complex, heterogeneous, and rarely modeled explicitly. We propose a degradation-aware and structure-preserving diffusion framework for real-world SR. Specifically, we introduce Degradation-aware Token Injection, which encodes lightweight degradation statistics from low-resolution inputs and fuses them with semantic conditioning features, enabling explicit degradation-aware restoration. We further propose Spatially Asymmetric Noise Injection, which modulates diffusion noise with local edge strength to better preserve structural regions during training. Both modules are lightweight add-ons to the adopted diffusion SR framework, requiring only minor modifications to the conditioning pipeline. Experiments on DIV2K and RealSR show that our method delivers competitive no-reference perceptual quality and visually more realistic restoration results than recent baselines, while maintaining a favorable perception--distortion trade-off. Ablations confirm the effectiveness of each module and their complementary gains when combined. The code and model are publicly available at https://github.com/jiyang0315/DASP-SR.git.