Making Images Real Again: A Comprehensive Survey on Deep Image Composition
This work addresses the pervasive visual inconsistency—arising from mismatches in color, scale, shape, illumination, shadows, and reflections—between inserted objects and background scenes in image compositing. To this end, we propose the first holistic taxonomy and unified framework for image synthesis, encompassing core subtasks including object placement, scene fusion, color harmonization, and shadow/reflection generation. Methodologically, the framework integrates CNNs, GANs, diffusion models, and multi-scale feature alignment techniques. Our contributions are threefold: (1) a standardized benchmark suite unifying major datasets (e.g., iHarmony4, HCOCO); (2) libcom—an open-source, modular image compositing toolbox implementing over ten state-of-the-art algorithms; and (3) a paradigm shift toward systematic modeling and engineering-ready deployment in image synthesis. Extensive experiments demonstrate the framework’s generality, robustness, and practical utility across diverse compositional scenarios.