Real-world image denoising via efficient diffusion model with controllable noise generation

Abstract

Real-world image denoising is a critical task in image processing, aiming to restore clean images from their noisy counterparts captured in natural environments. While diffusion models have demonstrated remarkable success in image generation, surpassing traditional generative models, their application to image denoising has been limited due to challenges in controlling noise generation effectively. We present a general denoising method inspired by diffusion models. Specifically, our approach employs a diffusion process with linear interpolation, enabling control of noise generation. By interpolating the intermediate noisy image between the original clean image and the corresponding real-world noisy one, our model is able to achieve controllable noise generation. Moreover, we introduce two sampling algorithms for this diffusion model: a straightforward procedure aligned with the diffusion process and an enhanced version that addresses the shortcomings of the former. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method, utilizing simple convolutional neural networks such as UNet, achieves denoising performance comparable to that of the transformer architecture.