Gap-closing Matters: Perceptual Quality Evaluation and Optimization of Low-Light Image EnhancementBaoliang Chen, Lingyu Zhu, Hanwei Zhu et al.
There is a growing consensus in the research community that the optimization of low-light image enhancement approaches should be guided by the visual quality perceived by end users. Despite the substantial efforts invested in the design of low-light enhancement algorithms, there has been comparatively limited focus on assessing subjective and objective quality systematically. To mitigate this gap and provide a clear path towards optimizing low-light image enhancement for better visual quality, we propose a gap-closing framework. In particular, our gap-closing framework starts with the creation of a large-scale dataset for Subjective QUality Assessment of REconstructed LOw-Light Images (SQUARE-LOL). This database serves as the foundation for studying the quality of enhanced images and conducting a comprehensive subjective user study. Subsequently, we propose an objective quality assessment measure that plays a critical role in bridging the gap between visual quality and enhancement. Finally, we demonstrate that our proposed objective quality measure can be incorporated into the process of optimizing the learning of the enhancement model toward perceptual optimality. We validate the effectiveness of our proposed framework through both the accuracy of quality prediction and the perceptual quality of image enhancement. Our database and codes are publicly available at https://github.com/Baoliang93/IACA_For_Lowlight_IQA.
Q-Doc: Benchmarking Document Image Quality Assessment Capabilities in Multi-modal Large Language ModelsJiaxi Huang, Dongxu Wu, Hanwei Zhu et al.
The rapid advancement of Multi-modal Large Language Models (MLLMs) has expanded their capabilities beyond high-level vision tasks. Nevertheless, their potential for Document Image Quality Assessment (DIQA) remains underexplored. To bridge this gap, we propose Q-Doc, a three-tiered evaluation framework for systematically probing DIQA capabilities of MLLMs at coarse, middle, and fine granularity levels. a) At the coarse level, we instruct MLLMs to assign quality scores to document images and analyze their correlation with Quality Annotations. b) At the middle level, we design distortion-type identification tasks, including single-choice and multi-choice tests for multi-distortion scenarios. c) At the fine level, we introduce distortion-severity assessment where MLLMs classify distortion intensity against human-annotated references. Our evaluation demonstrates that while MLLMs possess nascent DIQA abilities, they exhibit critical limitations: inconsistent scoring, distortion misidentification, and severity misjudgment. Significantly, we show that Chain-of-Thought (CoT) prompting substantially enhances performance across all levels. Our work provides a benchmark for DIQA capabilities in MLLMs, revealing pronounced deficiencies in their quality perception and promising pathways for enhancement. The benchmark and code are publicly available at: https://github.com/cydxf/Q-Doc.