Optimized color image watermarking through watermark strength optimization using particle swarm optimization technique

Abstract

Digital Watermarking is a technique in which some presume content like image or data is embedded in any cover content in a way such that the quality of the digital content should not be degraded and it should not be visible to human eyes. In this paper a secure watermarking scheme has been proposed for color images and is optimized using one of the nature inspired algorithm called Particle swarm optimization. Here for embedding color watermark is used and is embedded in all three planes (R,G,B) of color host image using 2 D DCT and entropy encoding scheme. The value of embedding strength is optimized using PSO algorithm to provide balance between robustness and imperceptibility characteristics of watermarking. The proposed algorithm is tested by performing various types of attacks on watermarked image and good PSNR and NC values are received which proves the imperceptibility and robustness of the scheme.