Allo{SR}$^2$: Rectifying One-Step Super-Resolution to Stay Real via Allomorphic Generative Flows

arXiv cs.CV / 4/22/2026

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Key Points

  • The paper introduces Allo{SR}$^2$, a framework for one-step real-world image super-resolution designed to preserve diffusion/flow generative priors rather than overfitting to limited LR-HR pairs.
  • It tackles “prior collapse” and one-step trajectory drift by using SNR-guided trajectory initialization that matches the LR degradation level to an optimal timestep of a pre-trained flow.
  • It proposes Flow-Anchored Trajectory Consistency (FATC) to keep one-step inference stable by enforcing velocity-level supervision across intermediate states.
  • It adds Allomorphic Trajectory Matching (ATM), a self-adversarial alignment method that reduces distribution mismatch between the super-resolution flow and the generative flow within a unified vector field.
  • Experiments on synthetic and real-world benchmarks show state-of-the-art one-step Real-SR results, balancing restoration fidelity, generative realism, and extreme inference efficiency.

Abstract

Real-world image super-resolution (Real-SR) has been revolutionized by leveraging the powerful generative priors of large-scale diffusion and flow-based models. However, fine-tuning these models on limited LR-HR pairs often precipitates "prior collapse" that the model sacrifices its inherent generative richness to overfit specific training degradations. This issue is further exacerbated in one-step generation, where the absence of multi-step refinement leads to significant trajectory drift and artifact generation. In this paper, we propose Allo{SR}^2, a novel framework that rectifies one-step SR trajectories via allomorphic generative flows to maintain high-fidelity generative realism. Specifically, we utilize Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) Guided Trajectory Initialization to establish a physically grounded starting state by aligning the degradation level of LR latent features with the optimal anchoring timestep of the pre-trained flow. To ensure a stable, curvature-free path for one-step inference, we propose Flow-Anchored Trajectory Consistency (FATC), which enforces velocity-level supervision across intermediate states. Furthermore, we develop Allomorphic Trajectory Matching (ATM), a self-adversarial alignment strategy that minimizes the distributional discrepancy between the SR flow and the generative flow in a unified vector field. Extensive experiments on both synthetic and real-world benchmarks demonstrate that Allo{SR}^2 achieves state-of-the-art performance in one-step Real-SR, offering a superior balance between restoration fidelity and generative realism while maintaining extreme efficiency.

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