# Perceptually Regularized Diffusion Model for Image Super-Resolution

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.02016 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.02016/

## 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 24 of its 31 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Sep 2026.

## Placed in

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

## Builds on (most cited first, 24 of 24)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.03585/) (2015)
- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [Auto-Encoding Variational Bayes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1312.6114/) (2013)
- [Deep Learning Face Attributes in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.7766/) (2014)
- [Progressive Growing of GANs for Improved Quality, Stability, and Variation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.10196/) (2017)
- [Perceptual Losses for Real-Time Style Transfer and Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.08155/) (2016)
- [Variational Inference with Normalizing Flows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.05770/) (2015)
- [Photo-Realistic Single Image Super-Resolution Using a Generative Adversarial Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.04802/) (2016)
- [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)
- [Diffusion Models: A Comprehensive Survey of Methods and Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.00796/) (2022)
- [SRDiff: Single Image Super-Resolution with Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.14951/) (2021)
- [Deep Learning for Image Super-resolution: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.06068/) (2019)
- [ResShift: Efficient Diffusion Model for Image Super-resolution by Residual Shifting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.12348/) (2023)
- [Real-World Single Image Super-Resolution: A Brief Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.02368/) (2021)
- [Diffusion Models, Image Super-Resolution And Everything: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.00736/) (2024)
- [Stabilizing Generative Adversarial Networks: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.00927/) (2019)
- [ResDiff: Combining CNN and Diffusion Model for Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08714/) (2023)
- [DeSRA: Detect and Delete the Artifacts of GAN-based Real-World Super-Resolution Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.02457/) (2023)
- [Boosting Latent Diffusion with Perceptual Objectives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.04873/) (2024)
- [Low-Cost Implementation of Bilinear and Bicubic Image Interpolation for Real-Time Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.09622/) (2020)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Image super-resolution, which aims to reconstruct high-resolution images from their low-resolution observations, is fundamental to medical imaging, remote sensing, surveillance, microscopy, and scientific visualization. Traditional model-based methods formulate super-resolution as an inverse problem with hand-crafted regularization priors. While interpretable and theoretically grounded, they rely on fixed assumptions and require computationally intensive iterative solvers. Deep learning methods offer data-driven flexibility by learning nonlinear mappings from low- to high-resolution images, among which diffusion models have achieved particularly impressive perceptual quality. However, the standard diffusion training objective is a pixel-domain noise-prediction loss that does not explicitly enforce perceptual fidelity, which can lead to oversmoothing and loss of fine image structure. To address these limitations, we propose a perceptually regularized diffusion framework that incorporates prior knowledge through perceptual-loss-based regularization, improving training convergence and encouraging the recovery of meaningful image features. Experiments on benchmark datasets demonstrate improved perceptual quality and competitive distortion metrics, highlighting the effectiveness of regularization for diffusion-based super resolution.