ReF-LLE: Personalized Low-Light Enhancement via Reference-Guided Deep Reinforcement Learning

Abstract: Low-light image enhancement presents two primary challenges: 1) Significant variations in low-light images across different conditions, and 2) Enhancement levels influenced by subjective preferences and user intent. To address these issues, we propose ReF-LLE, a novel personalized low-light image enhancement method that operates in the Fourier frequency domain and incorporates deep reinforcement learning. ReF-LLE is the first to integrate deep reinforcement learning into this domain. During training, a zero-reference image evaluation strategy is introduced to score enhanced images, providing reward signals that guide the model to handle varying degrees of low-light conditions effectively. In the inference phase, ReF-LLE employs a personalized adaptive iterative strategy, guided by the zero-frequency component in the Fourier domain, which represents the overall illumination level. This strategy enables the model to adaptively adjust low-light images to align with the illumination distribution of a user-provided reference image, ensuring personalized enhancement results. Extensive experiments on benchmark datasets demonstrate that ReF-LLE outperforms state-of-the-art methods, achieving superior perceptual quality and adaptability in personalized low-light image enhancement.