2025/03/14 by Liying Lu, Lu, Liying, Raphaël Achddou +3 · 1 citation
Computer Science · #Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (cs.CV) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Electrical engineering #Image and Signal Denoising Methods #Image and Video Processing (eess.IV) #electronic engineering #information engineering
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2503.11262
openalex publication_date 2025/03/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/20 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Low-light photography produces images with low signal-to-noise ratios due to limited photons. In such conditions, common approximations like the Gaussian noise model fall short, and many denoising techniques fail to remove noise effectively. Although deep-learning methods perform well, they require large datasets of paired images that are impractical to acquire. As a remedy, synthesizing realistic low-light noise has gained significant attention. In this paper, we investigate the ability of diffusion models to capture the complex distribution of low-light noise. We show that a naive application of conventional diffusion models is inadequate for this task and propose three key adaptations that enable high-precision noise generation without calibration or post-processing: a two-branch architecture to better model signal-dependent and signal-independent noise, the incorporation of positional information to capture fixed-pattern noise, and a tailored diffusion noise schedule. Consequently, our model enables the generation of large datasets for training low-light denoising networks, leading to state-of-the-art performance. Through comprehensive analysis, including statistical evaluation and noise decomposition, we provide deeper insights into the characteristics of the generated data.