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Jefferson Gonçalves
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Awesome Image Colorization

:books: A collection of Deep Learning based Image Colorization and Video Colorization papers.

#Awesome-Image-Colorization

Awesome

A collection of Deep Learning based Image Colorization papers and corresponding source code/demo program, including Automatic and User Guided (i.e. with User Interaction) colorization, as well as video colorization.

Feel free to create a PR or an issue. (Pull Request is preferred)

examples

Outline

#0. Survey

Paper Source Code/Project Link
Computer-Aided Colorization State-of-the-Science: A Survey TVCG 2025 [webpage]
Cartoon Image Processing: A Survey IJCV 2022 [webpage]
Deep learning for image colorization: Current and future prospects EAAI 2022

#1. Automatic Image Colorization

#1.1 Software / Demo

Name Author/Owner Code/Project Link
DeOldify Jason Antic [link]
Palette.fm Emil Wallner [link]
ArtImageHub artimagehub.com [link]

#1.2 Papers

  • Natural images
Paper Source Code/Project Link
Learning Large-Scale Automatic Image Colorization ICCV 2015 [project] [code]
Deep Colorization ICCV 2015
Learning Representations for Automatic Colorization ECCV 2016 [project] [code]
Colorful Image Colorization ECCV 2016 [project] [code]
Let there be Color!: Joint End-to-end Learning of Global and Local Image Priors for Automatic Image Colorization with Simultaneous Classification SIGGRAPH 2016 [project] [code]
Learning Diverse Image Colorization CVPR 2017 [code]
Structural Consistency and Controllability for Diverse Colorization ECCV 2018
Coloring With Limited Data: Few-Shot Colorization via Memory Augmented Networks CVPR 2019 [project]

Unofficial:
[code (PyTorch)]
ChromaGAN: Adversarial Picture Colorization with Semantic Class Distribution WACV 2020 [code]
Instance-aware Image Colorization CVPR 2020 [code] [project]
Pixelated Semantic Colorization IJCV 2020
Colorization Transformer ICLR 2021 [code]
Focusing on Persons: Colorizing Old Images Learning from Modern Historical Movies ACM MM 2021 [code]
Towards Vivid and Diverse Image Colorization with Generative Color Prior ICCV 2021 [code]
SCSNet: An Efficient Paradigm for Learning Simultaneously Image Colorization and Super-Resolution (also reference based) AAAI 2022
Bridging the Domain Gap towards Generalization in Automatic Colorization ECCV 2022 [code]
ColorFormer: Image Colorization via Color Memory assisted Hybrid-attention Transformer ECCV 2022 [code]
BigColor: Colorization using a Generative Color Prior for Natural Images ECCV 2022 [project] [code]
CT2: Colorization Transformer via Color Tokens ECCV 2022 [code]
Disentangled Image Colorization via Global Anchors SIGGRAPH Asia 2022 [code] [project]
UniColor: A Unified Framework for Multi-Modal Colorization with Transformer (also multi-modal) SIGGRAPH Asia 2022 [project]
Improved Diffusion-based Image Colorization via Piggybacked Models arxiv 23.04 [project]
DDColor: Towards Photo-Realistic and Semantic-Aware Image Colorization via Dual Decoders ICCV 2023 [code] [project]
Diffusing Colors: Image Colorization with Text Guided Diffusion (also text-based) SIGGRAPH Asia 2023 [project]
Automatic Controllable Colorization via Imagination CVPR 2024 [code] [project]
Control Color: Multimodal Diffusion-based Interactive Image Colorization arxiv 24.02 [code] [project]
MultiColor: Image Colorization by Learning from Multiple Color Spaces ACM MM 2024
Image Colorization via Efficient Diffusion Model TMM 2026
ColorFLUX: A Structure-Color Decoupling Framework for Old Photo Colorization CVPR 2026
  • Line arts
Paper Source Code/Project Link
Region Assisted Sketch Colorization TIP 2023

#2. User Guided Image Colorization

#2.1 Based on scribble

  • Software / Demo
Image Type Name Author/Owner Code/Project Link
Line art Petalica Paint (Old version: PaintsChainer) Preferred Networks, Inc. [Petalica Paint (Online service)] [PaintsChainer V1 code]
Line art Style2Paints (SEPA) Style2Paints Research [link]
  • Papers: Natural images
Image Type Paper Source Code/Project Link
Natural Gray-Scale Real-Time User-Guided Image Colorization with Learned Deep Priors SIGGRAPH 2017 [project] [code1] [code2]
Natural Gray-Scale iColoriT: Towards Propagating Local Hint to the Right Region in Interactive Colorization by Leveraging Vision Transformer WACV 2023 [project] [code]
Natural Gray-Scale LGA-Net: Learning Local and Global Affinities for Sparse Scribble based Image Colorization ICCV 2025 [code]
  • Papers: Sketch / Line arts
Image Type Paper Source Code/Project Link
Manga Manga colorization SIGGRAPH 2006 [Project]
Line art / Sketch / Manga LazyBrush: Flexible Painting Tool for Hand-drawn Cartoons Eurographics 2009 [Project Home & Software]

Unofficial:
[code(Matlab)]
Line art / Sketch Outline Colorization through Tandem Adversarial Networks 1704.08834 [code]
Sketch Scribbler: Controlling Deep Image Synthesis with Sketch and Color CVPR 2017
Line art / Sketch Auto-painter: Cartoon Image Generation from Sketch by Using Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks Neurocomputing 2018 [code]
Line art User-Guided Deep Anime Line Art Colorization with Conditional Adversarial Networks ACM MM 2018 [code]
Line art Two-stage Sketch Colorization SIGGRAPH Asia 2018 [Project]
Line art User-Guided Line Art Flat Filling with Split Filling Mechanism CVPR 2021 [Project] [code]
Line art Dual Color Space Guided Sketch Colorization TIP 2021
Line art Delaunay Painting: Perceptual Image Colouring from Raster Contours with Gaps CGF 2022
Line art FlatGAN: A Holistic Approach for Robust Flat-Coloring in High-Definition with Understanding Line Discontinuity ACM MM 2023 [code]
Line art Winding Number Features for Vector Sketch Colorization CGF 2024
Line art KISSColor: Kinetic and Intuitive Stroke Stretching for Vector Drawing Colorization SIGGRAPH Asia 2025

#2.2 Based on reference image

  • Natural images
Image Type Paper Source Code/Project Link
Natural Gray-Scale Deep Exemplar-based Colorization SIGGRAPH 2018 [code]
Natural Gray-Scale Example-Based Colourization Via Dense Encoding Pyramids (also palette based) Pacific Graphics 2018 [code]
Natural Gray-Scale A Superpixel-based Variational Model for Image Colorization TVCG 2019
Natural Gray-Scale Automatic Example-based Image Colourisation using Location-Aware Cross-Scale Matching TIP 2019
Natural Gray-Scale Stylization-Based Architecture for Fast Deep Exemplar Colorization CVPR 2020 [code]
Natural Gray-Scale Gray2ColorNet: Transfer More Colors from Reference Image ACM MM 2020
Natural Gray-Scale Globally and Locally Semantic Colorization via Exemplar-Based Broad-GAN TIP 2021
Natural Gray-Scale Yes, "Attention Is All You Need", for Exemplar based Colorization ACM MM 2021
Natural Gray-Scale SCSNet: An Efficient Paradigm for Learning Simultaneously Image Colorization and Super-Resolution (also automatic) AAAI 2022
Natural Gray-Scale Semantic-Sparse Colorization Network for Deep Exemplar-based Colorization ECCV 2022
Natural Gray-Scale Unsupervised Deep Exemplar Colorization via Pyramid Dual Non-local Attention TIP 2023 [code]
Natural Gray-Scale Lightweight Deep Exemplar Colorization via Semantic Attention-Guided Laplacian Pyramid TVCG 2024
  • Sketch / Line arts
Image Type Paper Source Code/Project Link
Manga Comicolorization: Semi-Automatic Manga Colorization SIGGRAPH Asia 2017 Technical Briefs [code]
Sketch TextureGAN: Controlling Deep Image Synthesis with Texture Patches CVPR 2018 [code]
Line art / Sketch Adversarial Colorization Of Icons Based On Structure And Color Conditions ACM MM 2019 [Code]
Line art / Sketch Reference-Based Sketch Image Colorization using Augmented-Self Reference and Dense Semantic Correspondence CVPR 2020 [project]
Manga Manga Filling Style Conversion with Screentone Variational Autoencoder SIGGRAPH Asia 2020 [project]
Line art / Sketch Colorization of Line Drawings with Empty Pupils PG 2020
Line art / Sketch Active Colorization for Cartoon Line Drawings TVCG 2020
Line art / Sketch Line Art Correlation Matching Feature Transfer Network for Automatic Animation Colorization WACV 2021
Line art / Sketch Style-Structure Disentangled Features and Normalizing Flows for Diverse Icon Colorization CVPR 2022
Line art / Sketch Eliminating Gradient Conflict in Reference-based Line-Art Colorization ECCV 2022 [code]
Line art / Sketch Self-driven Dual-path Learning for Reference-based Line Art Colorization under Limited Data TCSVT 2023
Line art / Sketch FlexIcon: Flexible Icon Colorization via Guided Images and Palettes (also palette based) ACM MM 2023
Line art / Sketch AnimeDiffusion: Anime Face Line Drawing Colorization via Diffusion Models TVCG 2024 [code]
Manga ColorFlow: Retrieval-Augmented Image Sequence Colorization arxiv 24.12 [code] [webpage]
Line art / Sketch MangaNinja: Line Art Colorization with Precise Reference Following CVPR 2025 [code] [webpage]
Line art / Sketch Image Referenced Sketch Colorization Based on Animation Creation Workflow CVPR 2025 [code]
Line art / Sketch Cobra: Efficient Line Art COlorization with BRoAder References SIGGRAPH 2025 [code] [webpage]
Line art / Sketch MagicColor: Multi-Instance Sketch Colorization ICCV 2025 [code] [webpage]
Line art / Sketch ColorizeDiffusion: Improving Reference-Based Sketch Colorization with Latent Diffusion Model WACV 2025 [code]
Line art / Sketch ColorizeDiffusion v2: Enhancing Reference-based Sketch Colorization Through Separating Utilities arxiv 25.04 [code]
Line art / Sketch MangaDiT: Reference-Guided Line Art Colorization with Hierarchical Attention in Diffusion Transformers arxiv 25.08
Line art / Sketch Towards High-resolution and Disentangled Reference-based Sketch Colorization CVPR 2026 [code]
Line art / Sketch TopoColor: Topology-Aware Region Correspondence for Line Art Colorization TVCG 2026

#2.3 Based on palette

  • Natural images
Image Type Paper Source Code/Project Link
Natural Image Palette-based Photo Recoloring SIGGRAPH 2015 [project]
Natural Gray-Scale Coloring with Words: Guiding Image Colorization Through Text-based Palette Generation (also text based) ECCV 2018 [code]
Natural Gray-Scale Example-Based Colourization Via Dense Encoding Pyramids (also reference based) Pacific Graphics 2018 [code]
Natural Gray-Scale PalGAN: Image Colorization with Palette Generative Adversarial Networks ECCV 2022 [code]
Natural Gray-Scale Exploring Palette based Color Guidance in Diffusion Models MM 2025
  • Sketch / Line arts
Image Type Paper Source Code/Project Link
Line art / Sketch FlexIcon: Flexible Icon Colorization via Guided Images and Palettes (also reference based) ACM MM 2023
Line art / Sketch SketchDeco: Training-Free Latent Composition for Precise Sketch Colourisation CVPR 2026 [code] [webpage]

#2.4 Based on language or text

  • Natural images
Paper Source Code/Project Link
Language-Based Image Editing with Recurrent Attentive Models CVPR 2018 [code]
Coloring with Words: Guiding Image Colorization Through Text-based Palette Generation (also palette based) ECCV 2018 [code]
Learning to Color from Language NAACL 2018 [code]
L-CoDe: Language-based Colorization using Color-object Decoupled Conditions AAAI 2022 [code]
L-CoDer: Language-based Colorization with Color-object Decoupling Transformer ECCV 2022 [code]
L-CoIns: Language-based Colorization with Instance Awareness CVPR 2023
L-CAD: Language-based Colorization with Any-level Descriptions NeurIPS 2023 [code]
Diffusing Colors: Image Colorization with Text Guided Diffusion SIGGRAPH Asia 2023 [project]
COCO-LC: Colorfulness Controllable Language-based Colorization ACM MM 2024 [project] [code]
Controllable Image Colorization with Instance-aware Texts and Masks (also automatic) arxiv 25.05
  • Sketch / Line arts
Image Type Paper Source Code/Project Link
Line art Tag2Pix: Line Art Colorization Using Text Tag With SECat and Changing Loss ICCV 2019 [code] [code2 (GUI)]
Scene Sketch Language-based Colorization of Scene Sketches SIGGRAPH Asia 2019 [code] [project]
Line art Line Art Colorization Based on Explicit Region Segmentation Pacific Graphics 2021 [code]
Sketch Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models ICCV 2023 [code]

#2.5 Multi-modal

Image Type Paper Input Source Code/Project Link
Natural Gray-Scale Interactive Deep Colorization Using Simultaneous Global and Local Inputs stroke + palette ICASSP 2019
Natural Gray-Scale UniColor: A Unified Framework for Multi-Modal Colorization with Transformer stroke + exemplar + text SIGGRAPH Asia 2022 [project]
Line art Two-Step Training: Adjustable Sketch Colourization via Reference Image and Text Tag exemplar + text CGF 2023 [code]
Natural Gray-Scale Control Color: Multimodal Diffusion-based Interactive Image Colorization text, stroke, exemplar arxiv 24.02 [code] [project]
Natural Gray-Scale Versatile Vision Foundation Model for Image and Video Colorization text, scribble, exemplar SIGGRAPH 2024
Line art OmniColor: A Unified Framework for Multi-modal Lineart Colorization text, scribble, exemplar ECCV 2026 [code]

#2.6 Interactive Colorization

Image Type Paper Source Code/Project Link
Natural Gray-Scale Deep Edge-Aware Interactive Colorization against Color-Bleeding Effects ICCV 2021 [project] [code(metric)]
Line art Guiding Users to Where to Give Color Hints for Efficient Interactive Sketch Colorization via Unsupervised Region Prioritization WACV 2023

#3. Human-AI Collaborated Colorization System

Paper Source Code/Project Link
FlatMagic: Improving Flat Colorization through AI-driven Design for Digital Comic Professionals CHI 2022 [code]
No Pixel Left Behind: Filling Gaps in Anime Colorization CHI 2026 [code] [webpage]

#4. Video Colorization

#4.0 Survey

Image Type Paper Source Code/Project Link
Video Colorization: A Survey JCST 2024

#4.1 Automatically

Image Type Paper Source Code/Project Link
Natural Gray-Scale Fully Automatic Video Colorization with Self-Regularization and Diversity CVPR 2019 [code]
Natural Gray-Scale VCGAN: Video Colorization With Hybrid Generative Adversarial Network TMM 2022 [code]
Natural Gray-Scale ColorSurge: Bringing Vibrancy and Efficiency to Automatic Video Colorization via Dual-Branch Fusion SIGGRAPH 2025 [code]

#4.2 Based on reference

  • Natural images
Image Type Paper Source Code/Project Link
Natural Gray-Scale Switchable Temporal Propagation Network ECCV 2018
Natural Gray-Scale Tracking Emerges by Colorizing Videos ECCV 2018 [code]
Natural Gray-Scale Deep Exemplar-based Video Colorization CVPR 2019 [code]
Natural Gray-Scale DeepRemaster: Temporal Source-Reference Attention Networks for Comprehensive Video Enhancement SIGGRAPH Asia 2019 [code] [project]
Natural Gray-Scale Reference-Based Video Colorization with Spatiotemporal Correspondence 2011.12528
Natural Gray-Scale BiSTNet: Semantic Image Prior Guided Bidirectional Temporal Feature Fusion for Deep Exemplar-based Video Colorization TPAMI 2024 [code] [project]
Natural Gray-Scale Exemplar-based Video Colorization with Long-term Spatiotemporal Dependency KBS 2024
Natural Gray-Scale ColorMNet: A Memory-based Deep Spatial-Temporal Feature Propagation Network for Video Colorization ECCV 2024 [code] [project]
  • Sketch / Line arts
Image Type Paper Source Code/Project Link
Line art The Animation Transformer: Visual Correspondence via Segment Matching ICCV 2021 [App]
Line art Line Art Correlation Matching Feature Transfer Network for Automatic Animation Colorization WACV 2021
Line art Deep Sketch-guided Cartoon Video Inbetweening TVCG 2021 [code]
Line art Reference-Based Deep Line Art Video Colorization TVCG 2022
Line art Learning Inclusion Matching for Animation Paint Bucket Colorization CVPR 2024 [webpage] [code]
Line art Paint Bucket Colorization Using Anime Character Color Design Sheets arxiv 24.10 [code]
Line art ToonCrafter: Generative Cartoon Interpolation SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 [code] [webpage]
Line art LVCD: Reference-based Lineart Video Colorization with Diffusion Models SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 [webpage]
Line art AniDoc: Animation Creation Made Easier CVPR 2025 [webpage] [code]
Line art SketchColour: Channel Concat Guided DiT-based Sketch-to-Colour Pipeline for 2D Animation arxiv 25.07 [webpage] [code]
Line art AnimeColor: Reference-based Animation Colorization with Diffusion Transformers MM 2025 [code]
Line art ToonComposer: Streamlining Cartoon Production with Generative Post-Keyframing arxiv 25.08 [webpage] [code]
Line art DACoN: DINO for Anime Paint Bucket Colorization with Any Number of Reference Images ICCV 2025 [code]
Line art A Unified Framework for Industrial Cel-Animation Colorization with Temporal-Structural Awareness ICCV 2025
Line art LongAnimation: Long Animation Generation with Dynamic Global-Local Memory ICCV 2025 [webpage]
Line art TimeColor: Flexible Reference Colorization via Temporal Concatenation arxiv 26.01 [webpage]

#4.3 Based on scribble

Image Type Paper Source Code/Project Link
Natural Gray-Scale SVCNet: Scribble-based Video Colorization Network with Temporal Aggregation TIP 2023 [code]

#4.4 Based on text

Image Type Paper Source Code/Project Link
Natural Gray-Scale Towards Photorealistic Video Colorization via Gated Color-Guided Image Diffusion Models ACM MM 2024
Natural Gray-Scale L-C4: Language-Based Video Colorization for Creative and Consistent Color arxiv 24.10
Natural Gray-Scale ColorDiffuser: Video Colorization with Pretrained Text-to-Image Diffusion Models ACMMM 2025 [code] [project]

#4.5 Based on palette

Image Type Paper Source Code/Project Link
Natural Gray-Scale Consistent Video Colorization via Palette Guidance arxiv 25.01

#4.6 Multimodal

Image Type Paper Source Code/Project Link
Natural Gray-Scale VanGogh: A Unified Multimodal Diffusion-based Framework for Video Colorization arxiv 25.01 [code] [webpage]

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