DST-Net: A Dual-Stream Transformer with Illumination-Independent Feature Guidance and Multi-Scale Spatial Convolution for Low-Light Image Enhancement

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Main Authors: Shi, Yicui, Chen, Yuhan, Huang, Xiangfei, Wang, Zhenguo, Yu, Wenxuan, Fang, Ying
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Shi, Yicui
Chen, Yuhan
Huang, Xiangfei
Wang, Zhenguo
Yu, Wenxuan
Fang, Ying
author_facet Shi, Yicui
Chen, Yuhan
Huang, Xiangfei
Wang, Zhenguo
Yu, Wenxuan
Fang, Ying
contents Low-light image enhancement aims to restore the visibility of images captured by visual sensors in dim environments by addressing their inherent signal degradations, such as luminance attenuation and structural corruption. Although numerous algorithms attempt to improve image quality, existing methods often cause a severe loss of intrinsic signal priors. To overcome these challenges, we propose a Dual-Stream Transformer Network (DST-Net) based on illumination-agnostic signal prior guidance and multi-scale spatial convolutions. First, to address the loss of critical signal features under low-light conditions, we design a feature extraction module. This module integrates Difference of Gaussians (DoG), LAB color space transformations, and VGG-16 for texture extraction, utilizing decoupled illumination-agnostic features as signal priors to continuously guide the enhancement process. Second, we construct a dual-stream interaction architecture. By employing a cross-modal attention mechanism, the network leverages the extracted priors to dynamically rectify the deteriorated signal representation of the enhanced image, ultimately achieving iterative enhancement through differentiable curve estimation. Furthermore, to overcome the inability of existing methods to preserve fine structures and textures, we propose a Multi-Scale Spatial Fusion Block (MSFB) featuring pseudo-3D and 3D gradient operator convolutions. This module integrates explicit gradient operators to recover high-frequency edges while capturing inter-channel spatial correlations via multi-scale spatial convolutions. Extensive evaluations and ablation studies demonstrate that DST-Net achieves superior performance in subjective visual quality and objective metrics. Specifically, our method achieves a PSNR of 25.64 dB on the LOL dataset. Subsequent validation on the LSRW dataset further confirms its robust cross-scene generalization.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_16482
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle DST-Net: A Dual-Stream Transformer with Illumination-Independent Feature Guidance and Multi-Scale Spatial Convolution for Low-Light Image Enhancement
Shi, Yicui
Chen, Yuhan
Huang, Xiangfei
Wang, Zhenguo
Yu, Wenxuan
Fang, Ying
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Low-light image enhancement aims to restore the visibility of images captured by visual sensors in dim environments by addressing their inherent signal degradations, such as luminance attenuation and structural corruption. Although numerous algorithms attempt to improve image quality, existing methods often cause a severe loss of intrinsic signal priors. To overcome these challenges, we propose a Dual-Stream Transformer Network (DST-Net) based on illumination-agnostic signal prior guidance and multi-scale spatial convolutions. First, to address the loss of critical signal features under low-light conditions, we design a feature extraction module. This module integrates Difference of Gaussians (DoG), LAB color space transformations, and VGG-16 for texture extraction, utilizing decoupled illumination-agnostic features as signal priors to continuously guide the enhancement process. Second, we construct a dual-stream interaction architecture. By employing a cross-modal attention mechanism, the network leverages the extracted priors to dynamically rectify the deteriorated signal representation of the enhanced image, ultimately achieving iterative enhancement through differentiable curve estimation. Furthermore, to overcome the inability of existing methods to preserve fine structures and textures, we propose a Multi-Scale Spatial Fusion Block (MSFB) featuring pseudo-3D and 3D gradient operator convolutions. This module integrates explicit gradient operators to recover high-frequency edges while capturing inter-channel spatial correlations via multi-scale spatial convolutions. Extensive evaluations and ablation studies demonstrate that DST-Net achieves superior performance in subjective visual quality and objective metrics. Specifically, our method achieves a PSNR of 25.64 dB on the LOL dataset. Subsequent validation on the LSRW dataset further confirms its robust cross-scene generalization.
title DST-Net: A Dual-Stream Transformer with Illumination-Independent Feature Guidance and Multi-Scale Spatial Convolution for Low-Light Image Enhancement
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.16482