Digital image completion by learning generation and patch matching jointly is described. Initially, a digital image having at least one hole is received. This holey digital image is provided as input to an image completer formed with a dual-stage framework that combines a coarse image neural network and an image refinement network. The coarse image neural network generates a coarse prediction of imagery for filling the holes of the holey digital image. The image refinement network receives the coarse prediction as input, refines the coarse prediction, and outputs a filled digital image having refined imagery that fills these holes. The image refinement network generates refined imagery using a patch matching technique, which includes leveraging information corresponding to patches of known pixels for filtering patches generated based on the coarse prediction. Based on this, the image completer outputs the filled digital image with the refined imagery.