Rightful ownership through image adaptive DWT-SVD watermarking algorithm and perceptual tweaking

Abstract

In this paper, a tailored blended image adaptive watermarking scheme has been presented, which is based on DWT and SVD. Through this paper an attempt has been made to solve the problem of false positive while maintaining the robustness and imperceptibility with the help of principal component and perceptual tuning of the image. Perceptual tuning is a non-blind technique and based on the objective quality of image. The embedding strength is made dependent on watermark features as well as of host in wavelet domain by using tuning parameter which is user specific. The idea of embedding the principal component of intermediate frequency sub-bands of watermark image into singular values of perceptually tuned intermediate frequency sub-bands of host image have been exploited. The proposed algorithm is providing the adaptive behavior towards the image content for perceptual transparency and at the same time avoiding the possibility of false watermark extraction well supported by a private key, which is necessary at the time of extraction. Thus the proposed watermarking algorithm is a kind of non-blind, image adaptive and suitable for rightful ownership. Various comparative results make the algorithm superior in terms of intentional and non-intentional attacks. Also the algorithm is strong against the print and scan attack.