Deep CNN-Based Super-Resolution Using External and Internal Examples

The external example-driven single image super-resolution (SISR) method that uses a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) has exhibited superior performance as compared to previously developed SISR methods. However, the advantages of jointly using external and internal examples on a deep CNN framework have not been sufficiently investigated. In this letter, we present a novel method for single image super-resolution by exploiting a complementary relation between external and internal example-based SISR methods. The proposed deep CNN model consists of two subnetworks, a global residual network and a self-residual network, to utilize the advantages of both external and internal examples. In contrast with conventional joint SISR methods, the proposed method is the first deep CNN-based SISR method that does not require a retraining process, which tends to be inefficient. The proposed method outperformed existing methods in both quantitative and qualitative evaluations.