A Robust Digital Image Watermarking Scheme in the Wavelet Domain for Copyright Protection

International Journal of Computer Science and Technology | Vol. 10, No. 4, April 2008 | pp. 25–32

DOI: 10.46882/2008/IJCST/104013

Research Article

Title: A Robust Digital Image Watermarking Scheme in the Wavelet Domain for Copyright Protection

Names of Authors: Carlos M. Ortega¹, Sofia L. Gomez¹

Authors’ Affiliations: ¹Department of Signal Processing, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain

Abstract: Unauthorized duplication and redistribution of digital multimedia assets highlight the pressing requirement for resilient copyright protection technologies. This paper introduces an imperceptible and robust digital image watermarking scheme executed within the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) domain, augmented by Singular Value Decomposition (SVD). The algorithm embeds a binary watermark logo into the singular values of selected mid-frequency sub-bands (LH and HL) of the host image. To enhance security and prevent geometric tampering bypasses, the watermark undergoes chaotic encryption via an Arnold transform prior to embedding. Experimental testing across standard greyscale images (including Lena, Barbara, and Cameraman) demonstrated high visual fidelity, achieving an average Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) of 44.2 dB ± 0.5 dB. The scheme exhibits strong resilience against common signal processing operations; the Normalized Correlation (NC) coefficients of extracted watermarks remained above 0.92 when subjected to JPEG compression down to a 30% quality factor, 3x3 median filtering, and Gaussian noise additions up to a variance of 0.01.

Keywords: Digital watermarking, discrete wavelet transform, singular value decomposition, copyright protection, Arnold transform, robustness analysis

Manuscript Timeline: Received January 10, 2008; Revised February 24, 2008; Accepted March 19, 2008; Published April 6, 2008

Citation: Ortega, C. M., & Gomez, S. L. (2008). A Robust Digital Image Watermarking Scheme in the Wavelet Domain for Copyright Protection. International Journal of Computer Science and Technology, 10(4), 25–32.

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