Enhancing Reference-based Sketch Colorization via Separating Reference Representations

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Yan, Dingkun, Wang, Xinrui, Li, Zhuoru, Saito, Suguru, Iwasawa, Yusuke, Matsuo, Yutaka, Guo, Jiaxian
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Yan, Dingkun
Wang, Xinrui
Li, Zhuoru
Saito, Suguru
Iwasawa, Yusuke
Matsuo, Yutaka
Guo, Jiaxian
author_facet Yan, Dingkun
Wang, Xinrui
Li, Zhuoru
Saito, Suguru
Iwasawa, Yusuke
Matsuo, Yutaka
Guo, Jiaxian
contents Reference-based sketch colorization methods have garnered significant attention for the potential application in animation and digital illustration production. However, most existing methods are trained with image triplets of sketch, reference, and ground truth that are semantically and spatially similar, while real-world references and sketches often exhibit substantial misalignment. This mismatch in data distribution between training and inference leads to overfitting, consequently resulting in artifacts and signif- icant quality degradation in colorization results. To address this issue, we conduct an in-depth analysis of the reference representations, defined as the intermedium to transfer information from reference to sketch. Building on this analysis, we introduce a novel framework that leverages distinct reference representations to optimize different aspects of the colorization process. Our approach decomposes colorization into modular stages, al- lowing region-specific reference injection to enhance visual quality and reference similarity while mitigating spatial artifacts. Specifically, we first train a backbone network guided by high-level semantic embeddings. We then introduce a background encoder and a style encoder, trained in separate stages, to enhance low-level feature transfer and improve reference similar- ity. This design also enables flexible inference modes suited for a variety of use cases. Extensive qualitative and quantitative evaluations, together with a user study, demonstrate the superior performance of our proposed method compared to existing approaches. Code and pre-trained weight will be made publicly available upon paper acceptance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_17620
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Enhancing Reference-based Sketch Colorization via Separating Reference Representations
Yan, Dingkun
Wang, Xinrui
Li, Zhuoru
Saito, Suguru
Iwasawa, Yusuke
Matsuo, Yutaka
Guo, Jiaxian
Graphics
Reference-based sketch colorization methods have garnered significant attention for the potential application in animation and digital illustration production. However, most existing methods are trained with image triplets of sketch, reference, and ground truth that are semantically and spatially similar, while real-world references and sketches often exhibit substantial misalignment. This mismatch in data distribution between training and inference leads to overfitting, consequently resulting in artifacts and signif- icant quality degradation in colorization results. To address this issue, we conduct an in-depth analysis of the reference representations, defined as the intermedium to transfer information from reference to sketch. Building on this analysis, we introduce a novel framework that leverages distinct reference representations to optimize different aspects of the colorization process. Our approach decomposes colorization into modular stages, al- lowing region-specific reference injection to enhance visual quality and reference similarity while mitigating spatial artifacts. Specifically, we first train a backbone network guided by high-level semantic embeddings. We then introduce a background encoder and a style encoder, trained in separate stages, to enhance low-level feature transfer and improve reference similar- ity. This design also enables flexible inference modes suited for a variety of use cases. Extensive qualitative and quantitative evaluations, together with a user study, demonstrate the superior performance of our proposed method compared to existing approaches. Code and pre-trained weight will be made publicly available upon paper acceptance.
title Enhancing Reference-based Sketch Colorization via Separating Reference Representations
topic Graphics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.17620