Blind Color Image Watermarking Research Articles

Color Image Watermarking Using Adaptive Tunable Q Wavelet, Finite Ridge Let, and Arnold Transforms with TSVD

In recent years, researchers have been working to integrate watermarking practices anchored in wavelet transform (WT) coefficients and Singular value decomposition (SVD) to recover the robustness of watermarked images in opposition to geometric and non-geometric attacks. Conversely, the watermark embedding, can initiate vagueness in the false-positive problem (FPP). To address this issue, Flamingo search algorithm-based Color Image Watermarking using Adaptive Tunable Q wavelet, Finite ridge let, Arnold transforms with Truncated Singular value decomposition (ATQWT-FRT-AT-TSVD-FSOA-CIW) is proposed. The proposed ATQWT-FRTAT-TSVD-FSOA-CIW method is separated into two stages: (i) watermark embedding and (ii) watermark extraction. The scaling factor is optimized with the help of the Flamingo search algorithm, which provides higher robustness, higher embedding strength, resistance to a false-positive problem, and better quality of the watermarking scheme. The proposed ATQWT-FRT-AT-TSVD-FSOA-CIW method is simulated in MATLAB tool. The performance of the proposed ATQWT-FRT-AT-TSVD-FSOA-CIW design is estimated under several performance metrics, such as Peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR), Structural similarity index measurement (SSIM), and Normalized cross-correlation (NCC). The performance of the proposed ATQWT-FRT-AT-TSVD-FSOA-CIW method attains 35%, 22.43%, 21.157%, 13.96%, and 7.186% higher PSNR compared to the existing designs, like secure with robust color image watermarking utilizing nature-inspired intelligence (DWT-SVD-ABCOA-CIW), the Artificial bee colony basis perceptually tuned blind color image watermarking in the hybrid LWT-DCT domain (LWT-DCT-ABCOA-CIW), the DWT-SVD based adaptive color multi-watermarking scheme for copyright protection under AMEF and PSO-GWO (DWT-SVD-Hybrid PSO-GWOA-CIW), Robust image watermarking based on fractional Krawtchouk transform with optimization (FrKT-Hybrid FO-CSOA-CIW), and the optimized semi-blind scheme for color image watermarking (DWTFRT-AT-SVD-PSO-CIW).

Deep Artificial Neural Network based Blind Color Image Watermarking in YCbCr Color Domain using statistical features

Deep Artificial Neural Network based Blind Color Image Watermarking in YCbCr Color Domain using statistical features

Blind color image watermarking incorporating a residual network for watermark denoising and super-resolution reconstruction

Watermarking is a technique for hiding secret information in various types of multimedia data to protect intellectual property rights. The integration of deep learning technology with image watermarking is currently reshaping the application and promotion of relevant techniques developed so far. This paper presents a novel type of blind color image watermarking method that embeds a downsized color image into a host color image. Watermarking implementation involves partitioning the host image into non-overlapping blocks of 8 × 8 pixels, performing discrete cosine transform (DCT) for each block of every channel, and then manipulating the magnitudes of three designated DCT coefficients subject to a minimization constraint. The experimental results confirmed that the proposed image watermarking method outperformed six other methods in terms of zero-normalized cross-correlation (ZNCC). Moreover, watermark imperceptibility, as reflected by the measured peak signal-to-noise ratio and mean structural similarity metrics, remained satisfactory. In addition to this new style of color image watermarking, we employed a deep residual network to reduce noise and increase the resolution of the retrieved watermarks. Overall, the residual network achieved a satisfactory ZNCC level (> 0.88) when the watermark images were super-resolved by a factor of sixteen.

A robust adaptive blind color image watermarking for resisting geometric attacks

Due to the differences of observation equipment and technical means, the size of the color digital image is not the same. In addition, most of digital watermarking methods used to protect the copyright of color digital images have weak robustness against geometric attacks. Therefore, this paper proposes a robust adaptive blind watermarking method to protect the copyright of color digital images. In the proposed method, the frequency domain characteristics of Slant transform are used to directly calculate the maximum energy coefficient of the pixel block, the maximum element of the coefficient matrix obtained after Slant transform in the spatial domain, and the color digital watermark is embedded by quantifying the maximum energy coefficient. At the same time, the adaptive strategies, which including the adaptive image size, the adaptive quantization step, the adaptive watermark encoding and the adaptive watermark embedding position, are proposed in this paper. Moreover, the proposed method can use geometric features of the image to correct many attacked images. Compared with the state-of-the-art watermarking methods, the proposed method can achieve acceptable imperceptibility and has larger watermark capacity, stronger robustness, higher security and better real-time performance.

Artificial bee colony based perceptually tuned blind color image watermarking in hybrid LWT-DCT domain

A perceptually tuned blind digital watermarking method for color images in a hybrid lifting wavelet transform (LWT) and discrete cosine transform (DCT) domain is proposed in this work. The color watermark is scrambled by arnold transform before embedding to enhance the security level. The color host image is firstly transformed by lifting wavelet transform and the approximate sub-band is partitioned into different blocks each of size 8 x 8. The pixel values of each block are quantized using a quantization table. Each quantized-block is further decomposed by the DCT, to generate the AC coefficient matrix. Scrambled watermark is thereafter inserted into the AC coefficient matrix using the perceptually tuned dynamic embedding strength factor. The visual quality and robustness of the proposed watermarking are balanced by optimizing the value of perceptually tuned strength factor by the Artificial bee colony (ABC) optimization algorithm. Experimental results show that the color watermark is undetectable (with CPSNR > 40 dB) into the host image and robust enough (with NC > 0.9) to resist the image processing and manipulation attacks. Comparison analysis with other related watermarking methods highlights the efficacy of the proposed work.

A color image watermarking framework for copyright protection of stereo images based on binocular just noticeable difference and LU decomposition

The copyright protection of three-dimensional (3D) content is a matter of interest in artistic and creative works due to the rights of the holder for the distribution of the material. However, although stereo images are widely used for the generation of 3D content, there is a little amount of research focused on copyright protection for this type of image. In this study, a novel invisible and blind color image watermarking framework for protecting the copyright of the stereo images based on Binocular Just Noticeable Difference (BJND) and lower-and-upper (LU) decomposition is proposed. In this framework, a color watermark is encoded to reduce the information. Then, the BJND model is calculated in the R channel of a stereo image, and finally, LU decomposition is applied into the G and B channels to embed and extract a color watermark. The BJND model has demonstrated a remarkable sensitivity comparable with the Human Visual System (HVS) in luminance changes such as the ones presented in stereo images, guaranteeing a good protection performance and a high imperceptibility. The proposed framework was compared with other state-of-the-art techniques, and it has demonstrated better performance and high resistance to attacks of JPEG compression or impulsive and Gaussian noise. Additionally, this novel framework does not affect the generation of the disparity map or the 3D content when the watermarked stereo images are used for their creation.

QDCT-Based Blind Color Image Watermarking With Aid of GWO and DnCNN for Performance Improvement

QDCT-Based Blind Color Image Watermarking With Aid of GWO and DnCNN for Performance Improvement

An effective robust and imperceptible blind color image watermarking using WHT

Digital image watermarking is the most widely used recognized approach to protect data against piracy. This paper proposes a new blind color image watermarking based on the Walsh Hadamard Transform (WHT). The proposed method subdivides the image into 4 × 4 non-overlapping blocks, which are then transformed using WHT. The color image watermark is embedded in the third and fourth-row WHT coefficients using the proposed technique as a slight change in those rows may not profoundly affect the visual quality of an image. Then the difference of the third and fourth row WHT coefficients of the watermarked image is obtained. The watermark information is extracted using the attained difference value. The performance evaluation of the proposed scheme outperforms in terms of embedding capacity, Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Weighted Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (WPSNR), Normalized cross-correlation (NC), and Structural Similarity Index (SSIM) than the conventional watermarking methods. This proposed method provides more robustness against several manipulations and lossy attacks.

A robust blind color image watermarking based on Fourier transform domain

In this work, we propose a new substitution scheme for color images watermarking based on the Fourier transform. This scheme will be declined into two variants in which the image will be divided into three components R, G and B, and then to each component a transform is applied. The parity of the resulting coefficients will then be combined to hide the watermark in the medium frequency band. In our experiments several variants of the Fourier transform are used (Discrete Fourier Transform, a Fractional Fourier Transform as well as a Quaternion Discrete Fourier Transform). For each transform, both variants of our watermarking scheme are applied. The obtained results show that our approach offers good imperceptibility and generates watermarking images robust against various attacks with a high-quality watermark.

An improved SVD-based blind color image watermarking algorithm with mixed modulation incorporated

This study systematically investigated the use of singular value decomposition (SVD) for the blind watermarking of color images. The proposed algorithm overcomes most of the problems typically encountered when using existing SVD-based schemes, while concurrently enhancing performance in terms of imperceptibility and robustness. After applying SVD to non-overlapping 4 × 4 image blocks, level shifting is used to control the embedding strength in accordance with the intensity of pixels in each block. The proposed watermark embedding process helps to preserve orthonormality in the unitary matrix and compensate for the resulting distortion. Iterative regulation ensures the accurate retrieval of the embedded watermark, while mixed modulation helps to improve robustness without compromising image quality. Experiment results demonstrate that the proposed watermarking algorithm is highly resistant to a variety of image processing attacks and error-free in the absence of attack. The proposed method outperforms existing SVD-based schemes in terms of imperceptibility and robustness at a payload capacity of 1/16 bit per pixel.

A novel blind color image watermarking based on Walsh Hadamard Transform

A new blind color image watermarking based on Walsh Hadamard Transform (WHT) is proposed in this paper which uses Triangular Vertex Transform (TVT) along with WHT. This method introduces a Triangular Vertex Transform (TVT) and Inverse Triangular Vertex Transform (ITVT) as well as applies this transform for image watermarking. Initially, convert the R, G, B color image to TVT coefficients U, V and W using the proposed TVT transform. Then the W coefficient is subdivided into 4 × 4 non-overlapping blocks, which are then transformed using WHT. The watermark is encrypted with the key K using the 2D-Logistic Sine Coupling Map encryption to obtain the encrypted watermarked image. The bits of the encrypted image is embedded in the first row WHT coefficients since the embedding of watermark bit on the first row provides high robustness to attacks. After embedding the data, the inverse WHT and inverse TVT are applied to obtain the watermarked image. The extraction process is similar to that of the embedding process where TVT is applied on the Watermarked image to construct W′ coefficient. Subdivide the attained W′ coefficient into 4 × 4 sub-block and then the WHT is applied to the 4 × 4 sub-block for extracting the data from the first row of WHT coefficients. The performance of the proposed watermarking algorithm outperforms in terms of Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Structural Similarity Index (SSIM) and Normalized cross-correlation (NC). Experimental results reveal that the proposed watermarking method is highly resistant to different types of attacks.

Selective bit embedding scheme for robust blind color image watermarking

In this paper, we propose a novel robust blind color image watermarking method, namely SMLE, that allows to embed a gray-scale image as watermark into a host color image in the wavelet domain. After decomposing the gray-scale watermark to component binary images in digits ordering from least significant bit (LSB) to most significant bit (MSB), the retrieved binary bits are then embedded into wavelet blocks of two optimal color channels by using an efficient quantization technique, where the wavelet coefficient difference in each block is quantized to either two pre-defined thresholds for corresponding 0-bits and 1-bits. To optimize the watermark imperceptibility, we equally split the coefficient modified quantity on two middle-frequency sub-bands instead of only one as in existing approaches. The improvement of embedding rule increases approximately 3 dB of watermarked image quality. An adequate trade-off between robustness and imperceptibility is controlled by a factor representing the embedding strength. As for extraction process, we exploit 2D Otsu algorithm for higher accuracy of watermark detection than that of 1D Otsu. Experimental results prove the robustness of our SMLE watermarking model against common image processing operations along with its efficient retention of the imperceptibility of the watermark in the host image. Compared to state-of-the-art methods, our approach outperforms in most of robustness tests at a same high payload capacity.

A new algorithm of blind color image watermarking based on LU decomposition

This paper proposes a new algorithm of blind color image watermarking based on LU decomposition. Because of the first column the second row element and the first column the third row element of the lower triangular matrix, which obtained by LU decomposition, have higher similarity, and the color image watermark can be embedded into these elements by slightly modifying rules, which can enhance the watermark invisibility. In addition, Arnold transform is applied to improve the watermark security and the Hash pseudo-random number algorithm based on MD5 is used to improve the watermark robustness. In extraction process, the watermark embedding strength and private key are needed to extract watermark information from the attacked host image with blind manner. Experiment results reveal that the proposed method outperforms other related methods in the aspects of the invisibility, robustness, embedding payload and computational complexity.

A novel blind color image watermarking based on Contourlet transform and Hessenberg decomposition

In this paper, a novel blind color image watermarking based on Contourlet transform and Hessenberg decomposition is proposed to protect digital copyright of color image. Firstly, each color channel of the host image is transformed by Contourlet transform and its low frequency sub-band is divided into 4ź×ź4 non-overlap coefficient block. Secondly, the coefficient block selected by MD5-based Hash pseudo-random algorithm is decomposed by Hessenberg decomposition. Thirdly, the watermark information permuted by Arnold transform is embedded into the biggest energy element of the upper Hessenberg matrix by quantization technique. In extraction process, the quantization strength is used for blindly extracting watermark information from the attacked host image without the help of any original image. The results show that the proposed scheme has higher imperceptibility and robustness against most common image attacks in comparison with other related methods.

Blind Color Image Watermarking Based on DWT and LU Decomposition

Blind Color Image Watermarking Based on DWT and LU Decomposition

Blind Watermarking Scheme based on U matrix Through QSVD Transformation

In this paper, a novel blind color image watermarking technique using U matrix through QSVD transformation is proposed to protect the intellectual property rights of color images. The proposed method tries to insert the watermark through moderating the coefficient of the quaternion elements in U matrix. .In this method, the color image is considered as an array of pure quaternion numbers. Then the array of pure quaternion is divided into non-overlapping blocks and we perform QSVD to the block to get the U matrix. The watermarking is inserted into the coefficient of the quaternion elements in the first column of the U matrix. Besides, in the procedure of watermark insertion and extraction, ensuring higher fidelity and robustness and resilience to several possible image attacks have been considered. The experimental results showed that the proposed method performance created watermarked images with better PSNRs and more robustness versus several attacks such as Salt &Pepper noise, Brightness adjustment, Sharpen and Blurring and Clipping.

A blind color image watermarking based on DC component in the spatial domain

Color image watermarking has become essential and important copyright protection or authentication scheme. It is noted that most of the existing color image watermarking algorithms are performed only in the single domain (spatial domain or frequency domain), and not to integrate these merits of the different domains. By utilizing the generating principle and distribution feature of the direct current (DC) coefficient, a novel blind watermarking algorithm is proposed for color host images in this paper. Firstly, the Y luminance of host image is divided into 8×8 sub-blocks and the DC coefficients of each block are directly calculated in the spatial domain without DCT transform. Secondly, according to the watermark information and the quantization step, the DC coefficients are calculated and their increments are further utilized to modify directly the values of all pixels in the spatial domain instead of the DCT domain to embed watermark. When watermark extraction, only the watermarked image and the quantization step are needed in the spatial domain. Experimental results show that the proposed method not only can resist both traditional signal processing attacks and geometric attacks, but also has more efficient in computational complexity. Comparisons also demonstrate the advantages of the method.

Error correcting codes for robust color wavelet watermarking

Abstract This article details the conception, design, development and analysis of invisible, blind and robust color image watermarking algorithms based on the wavelet transform. Using error correcting codes, the watermarking algorithms are designed to be robust against intentional or unintentional attacks such as JPEG compression, additive white Gaussian noise, low pass filter and color attacks (hue, saturation and brightness modifications). Considering the watermarking channel characterized by these attacks, repetition, Hamming, Bose Chaudhuri Hocquenghem and Reed-Solomon codes are used in order to improve the robustness using different modes and appropriate decoding algorithms. The article compares the efficiency of different type of codes against different type of attacks. To the best of our knowledge this is the first time that the effect of error-correcting codes against different attacks are detailed in a watermarking context in such a precise way: describing and comparing the effect of different classes of codes against different type of attacks. This article clearly shows that list decoding of Reed-Solomon codes using the algorithm of Sudan exhibits good performance against hue and saturation attacks. The use of error correcting codes in a concatenation mode allows the non-binary block codes to show good performance against JPEG compression, noise and brightness attacks.

A robust blind color image watermarking in quaternion Fourier transform domain

Most of the existing color image watermarking schemes were designed to mark the image luminance component only, which have some disadvantages: (i) they are sensitive to color attacks because of ignoring the correlation between different color channels, (ii) they are always not robust to geometric distortions for neglecting the watermark desynchronization. It is a challenging work to design a robust color image watermarking scheme. Based on quaternion Fourier transform and least squares support vector machine (LS-SVM), we propose a robust blind color image watermarking in quaternion Fourier transform domain, which has good visual quality. Firstly, the original color image is divided into color image blocks. Then, the fast quaternion Fourier transform is performed on the color image block. Finally, the digital watermark is embedded into original color image by adaptively modulating the real quaternion Fourier transform coefficients of color image block. For watermark decoding, the LS-SVM correction with pseudo-Zernike moments is utilized. Experimental results show that the proposed color image watermarking is not only robust against common image processing operations such as filtering, JPEG compression, histogram equalization, and image blurring, but also robust against the geometrical distortions.

A robust blind color image watermarking based on wavelet-tree bit host difference selection

In this paper, a blind watermarking technique based on the so called wavelet-trees is introduced. The proposed technique deals with the color pixel as one unit and exploits the significant features and relations between the color pixel components in the wavelet domain. The watermark is embedded by spreading it through the host image in such a manner that the inter-pixel robust relations carry the watermark bit sign with sufficient energy. Experimental results have shown that the proposed scheme is highly imperceptible with PSNR=41.78−48.65 dB, for various watermarked images, with a capacity of 3072 bits. Also, the proposed scheme is highly resistive to various common signal processing attacks (filtration, noise, etc.). For the well known JPEG/JPEG2000 attacks, the watermark survived at a quality factor Q≤1 with JPEG compression, and at compression ratios up to 500:1 with JPEG2000.