We are IntechOpen,

the world’s leading publisher of

Open Access books
Built by scientists, for scientists

4,800
Open access books available
123,000
International authors and editors
140M Downloads

Our authors are among the

154
Countries delivered to
TOP 1%
most cited scientists
12.2%
Contributors from top 500 universities

Selection of our books indexed in the Book Citation Index

in Web of Science™ Core Collection (BKCI)

Interested in publishing with us?

Contact [email protected]
Numbers displayed above are based on latest data collected.
For more information visit www.intechopen.com
Chapter

Blind Wavelet-Based Image

Watermarking
Abeer D. Algarni and Hanaa A. Abdallah

Abstract

In this chapter, the watermarking technique is blind; blind watermarking does

not need any of the original images or any information about it to recover water-
mark. In this technique the watermark is inserted into the high frequencies. Three-
level wavelet transform is applied to the image, and the size of the watermark is
equal to the size of the detailed sub-band. Significant coefficients are used to embed
the watermark. The proposed technique depends on quantization. The proposed
watermarking technique generates images with less degradation.

Keywords: watermarking, discrete wavelet transform, quantization, blind,

coefficients, peak signal-to-noise ratio, normalization, correlation

1. Introduction

Watermarking methods operating in the wavelet domain have become attractive

because they have inherent robustness against compression if the low-frequency
band is selected for watermark embedding, and, additionally, the wavelet transform
provides a multiresolution representation of images, which can be exploited to build
more efficient watermark detection schemes. The history of watermarking is
presented here. Zhu et al. [1] proposed adding a mark, a Gaussian sequence of
pseudorandom real numbers, into all the high-pass bands in the wavelet domain.
An algorithm developed by Xia et al. [2] utilizes large DWT coefficients of the high-
and mid-frequency bands to embed a random Gaussian distributed watermark
sequence. Dugad et al. [3] provided a method to embed a Gaussian sequence of
pseudorandom real numbers into selected coefficients in all detailed sub-bands with
magnitude above a given threshold in a three-level decomposition with Daubechies-
8 filters. In general, the watermark embedded in low-pass bands of the wavelet
domain is robust to a group of attacks such as low-pass filtering, Gaussian noise,
and lossy compression but affects the fidelity of the watermarked image and that in
high-pass bands is resistant to another set of attacks such as histogram equalization,
intensity adjustment, and gamma correction [4].

2. Blind and non-blind methods

As described before, watermarking methods can be classified according to whether

the original data is used in extraction/detection procedure or not. In 1997, Cox et al.
[5] proposed a watermarking method where they embed the watermark into the

1
Cyberspace

lower frequency coefficients in the DCT domain. Their method needs the original
image and the embedding strength coefficient to detect the presence of the water-
mark. However, the original source might not be available in several applications.
Barni et al. [6] presented a method to overcome the non-blind watermarking prob-
lem. They correlate the watermark sequence directly with all coefficients of the
received image and then compare the correlation coefficient with some detection
threshold. Only, the watermark sequence and the scaling factor are needed in the
watermark detection. This approach is widely utilized in the watermarking commu-
nity. However, it turns out that blind methods are less secure than non-blind methods.

3. Watermarking in transform domains

Watermarking methods can be classified according to whether they use embed-

ding based on additive algorithms or quantization algorithms.

3.1 Additive algorithms

Additive embedding strategies are characterized by the linear modification of

the host image and correlative processing in the detection stage. A considerable
number of image watermarking methods share this architecture. In most algo-
rithms, the signature data is a sequence of numbers wi of length N that is embedded
in a suitable selected subset of the host signal coefficients. The basic and commonly
used embedding formulas are defined by the following equations (Eqs. (1) and (2)):

ð1Þ

ð2Þ

where k is a weighting factor that influences the robustness as well as the

visibility and V 0 is the resulting modified host data coefficients carrying the water-
mark information. The majority of watermarking systems presented in the litera-
ture falls into this class, differing chiefly in the signal design, the embedding, and
the retrieval of the watermark content. The extraction process is accomplished by
applying the inverse embedding formulas.
The algorithm developed by Dugad et al. [3] makes use of a sequence of pseu-
dorandom Gaussian real numbers, matching the size of the detailed sub-bands of
the wavelet domain. The authors performed three-level decomposition with
Daubechies-8 filters and selected all coefficients in all detailed sub-bands, whose
magnitude is above a given threshold. The equation used for watermark embedding
is described in Eq. (3).
For a blind retrieval of the watermark, a statistical detector was proposed based
on the following formula:

ð3Þ

where δ is estimated by correlating the watermark sequence w directly with all N

coefficients of the received image V*. A large number of random sequences are
tested, but only the sequence that was originally embedded yields the highest

2
Blind Wavelet-Based Image Watermarking
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88131

correlation coefficient. Therefore, we can conclude that the image has been
watermarked with w. A detection threshold τ can be established to make the detec-
tion decision if δ τ. The detection threshold can be derived either experimentally or
analytically.
The threshold τ is estimated using Eq. (4):

ð4Þ

where only the coefficients above the detection threshold are considered.

3.2 Algorithms based on quantization

The quantization schemes perform nonlinear modifications during embedding

and detecting the embedded message by quantizing the received samples to map
them to the nearest reconstruction point. Quantization is the process of mapping a
large possibly infinite set of values to a much smaller set. A quantizer consists of an
encoder mapping and a decoder mapping. The range of source values is divided into
a number of intervals. The encoder represents each interval with a code word
assigned to that interval. The decoder is able to reconstruct a value for every code
word produced by the encoder. Scalar quantizes take scalar values as input and
output code words, while vector quantizers work with vectors of input sequences or
blocks of the source input.
Quantization-based watermarking is a new technique, as a logo is embedded and
detected in a blind way. Authors in [6] introduced a scalar quantization
watermarking technique, where the watermark is embedded in the middle- and
low-frequency bands. The robustness of the algorithm is tested by applying the
algorithm to JPEG compression. Only this attack is tested.
Authors in [7, 8] present another quantization-based watermarking algorithm
which improves on the Tsai algorithm by incorporating variable quantization and
resistance against a wide range of attacks like blurring, noising, sharpening, scaling,
cropping, and compression.
The main issue with these quantization-based algorithms is that it only tackles a
subset of attacks. For example, Tsai’s algorithm is only robust against JPEG com-
pression; however Chen’s algorithm does not tackle geometric attacks like rotation.
Hence we propose a new algorithm which is robust against cropping, JPEG com-
pression, resizing, rotation, and salt and pepper.

4. Wavelet-based methods

The wavelet transform finds a great popularity in the field of watermarking as it

is able to decompose the available images into sub-bands, in which watermarks can
be embedded [3, 9]. Taking the cue from the spread spectrum method, we embed
the data in transform coefficients chosen in a random order. For extraction of the
hidden data, the random sequence must be made available to the extractor. Cox
et al. [5] were the first to apply the spread spectrum method to data hiding. Trans-
forms such as the DCT and DWT have been used. The use of the DWT has advan-
tages of speed and robustness against wavelet-based compression. Previously,
Dugad’s algorithm introduced an additive watermarking technique in the wavelet
domain [3]. The proposed technique in this paper uses three-level wavelet

3
Cyberspace

transform using Daubechies filter; the watermark is embedded in the high-

frequency domain [9], and it is blind algorithm, and the watermark is detected
without using the original image. Also this technique uses only the high value
coefficients to insert the watermark. Large wavelet coefficients are referred to edges
within an image. So, any degradation in this region won’t be noticed by the human
viewer. Also it is difficult to remove the watermark without distorting the marked
image according to the perceptually significant large magnitude wavelet coeffi-
cients. Since watermark verification typically consists of a correlation estimation
step, which is extremely sensitive to the relative order in which the watermark
coefficients are placed within the image, such changes in the location of the
watermarked coefficients were unacceptable. Dugad et al. have proposed a spread
spectrum method for digital image watermarking in the wavelet domain, which
does not require the original image for watermark detection [3]. This method is
based on adding the watermark in selected coefficients with significant image
energy in the transform domain in order to ensure non-erasability of the water-
mark. This method has an advantage over the previous methods, which did not use
the original in the detection process and could not selectively add the watermark to
the significant coefficients, since the locations of such selected coefficients can
change due to image manipulations.
The method proposed by Dugad et al. [3] has overcome the problem of “order
sensitivity.” It has some advantages such as an improved resistance to attacks on the
watermark, an implicit visual masking utilizing the time-frequency localization
property of the wavelet transform, and a robust definition for the threshold, which
validates the watermark.
The disadvantage of this method is using additive technique in watermarking. In
this additive method, the detectors must correlate watermarked image coefficients
with the known watermark to know if the image is marked or not. To solve this
problem, it is important to correlate a large number of coefficients as possible, but it
in turn requires the watermark to be embedded into many image coefficients at the
embedding stage. This has the effect of increasing the amount of degradation in the
marked image. Another drawback is that the detector can only tell if the watermark
is present or absent. It cannot recover the actual watermark. Here, we present a new
method to avoid these drawbacks. It is possible to use the advantages of the
watermarking scheme by Dugad et al. [3] while avoiding the disadvantages. This
can be achieved using the idea of a watermark with the same size as the original
image in conjunction with adapted versions of scalar quantization insertion/detec-
tion method. The resultant watermarking system will be blind and based on
quantization.
A watermark size has to be equal in size to the detailed sub-band in wavelet
transform domain, and only significant coefficients will be used to embed water-
mark. Finally, this new method outperforms the previous method using quantiza-
tion and a new watermark embedding process, not the additive one. After applying
a comparable robustness performance, the watermarked images using our new
method give less degradation than Dugad’s scheme.
However, only a few of these watermark values are added to the host image. The
watermark values are found in fixed locations; thus, the ordering of significant
coefficients in the correlation process is not an issue for watermark detection. This
gives the technique a value as the correlation process is sensitive to the ordering of
significant coefficients, and if there is any change applied to the ordering, it will
cause a poor detector response.
In Zolghadrasli’s method that is based on the DWT [10], Gaussian noise is used
as the watermark. Here the watermark is added to the significant coefficients of
each selected sub-band depending on the human visual system (HVS)

4
Blind Wavelet-Based Image Watermarking
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88131

characteristics. Any small modifications are performed to improve HVS model. This
technique is non-blind as the host image is needed in the watermark extraction.

4.1 Dugad’s method

Dugad et al. [3] presented an additive watermarking method operating in the

wavelet domain. This method allowed the detection of the watermark without
access to the original uncorrupted image.

4.1.1 Embedding algorithm

The embedding algorithm can be summarized in the following steps:

1. From all wavelet coefficients (except the low-pass coefficients in LL band and
high-pass coefficients in HH band), the coefficients of magnitude higher than
t1 are chosen. This proves that only significant coefficients are used. The
wavelet coefficients of magnitude higher than t1 depend upon the smoothness
or more details in the image.

2. Then the zero mean and unit variance watermark are generated with a known
seed value; the watermark should be equal in size to the input image.

3. The watermark is embedded in each location which has wavelet coefficient

with magnitude higher than t1; the watermarked wavelet coefficient is given
by Eq. (5):
ð5Þ

where wij is the wavelet coefficient, k is a scaling parameter, xij is a watermark

value, and is the watermarked wavelet coefficient.

4.1.2 Detection algorithm

1. The watermark is regenerated using the known seed value.

2. All wavelet coefficients (barring the LL and HH components) of magnitude

greater than t2 from a possibly corrupted watermarked image are selected.
Note that by setting t2 > t1, we find that the robustness is increased, and some
wavelet coefficients with magnitudes below t1 may become higher than t1 due
to image manipulations.

3. Wavelet coefficients with magnitude higher than t2 are used in the detection
process; these detected values are correlated with the watermark values at the
same locations. After this correlation process, a yes or no answer will be given
as to the presence of the watermark.

5. Non-blind watermarking

Another watermarking method operating upon significant coefficients within

the wavelet domain was presented by Miyazaki et al. [9]. This method takes a three-
level wavelet transform of the image to be watermarked and inserts the watermark

5
Cyberspace

into the detail coefficients at the coarsest scales (LH3, HL3); the low-pass
component LL3 and diagonal details HH3 are excluded.

5.1 Miyazaki’s method

Two watermarking algorithms were presented by Miyazaki et al. [9]. Both

algorithms were implemented in the wavelet domain, but each targeted a different
set of coefficients for insertion. The first of these insertion methods is applied on
insignificant coefficients, whereas the second type of insertion is applied on signif-
icant coefficients. So, both insertion techniques would be applied to a single image
at the same time. However, experimental results proved that the insertion method
by applying the significant coefficients was more robust than the insertion method
using insignificant coefficients. So, the insertion method utilizing the significant
coefficients will be considered.
In this technique three-level wavelet transform is applied to the image, and the
watermark is inserted into the detail coefficients at the wavelet level three. The
detailed coefficients which are found at level three are the horizontal details, High
Low 3 (HL3); the vertical details, Low High 3 (LH3); and the diagonal details, High
High 3 (HH3). The low-pass component, Low Low 3 (LL3), is left unchanged. This
is a quantization-based watermarking method which aims to modify wavelet coef-
ficients of high magnitude, thus embedding the watermark into edge and textured
regions of an image. The process for watermark insertion is as follows:

5.1.1 Embedding algorithm

1. Two thresholds, t1 and t2, are selected, and any one of the sub-bands LH3 and
HL3 is chosen. Next, significant coefficients Cok (k = 1, 2… N) satisfying t1
< Cok < t2 are found.

2. A binary watermark is created, Wat (k); k = 1, 2… N.

3. For k = 1, 2,… N, the embedding of the watermark is applied by modifying Ck

as follows:

If Wat(k) = 1 and Cok > 0, then Cok = t2,

If Wat(k) = 0 and Cok > 0, then Cok = t1,
If Wat(k) = 1 and Cok < 0, then Cok = t2,
If Wat(k) = 0 and Cok < 0, then Cok = t1,

4.The embedded position, sub-band label, and the two thresholds t1 and t2
should be saved.

5.1.2 Detection algorithm

The following process details the steps involved for watermark detection:

1. Using the sub-band label and the embedded position, the recovered wavelet
coefficients Cok. k = 1, 2… N are obtained.

2. Check each Ck individually:

If Cok < (t1 + t2) /2, then the recovered watermark bit is 0.
If Cok ≥ (t1 + t2) /2, then the recovered watermark bit is 1.

6
Blind Wavelet-Based Image Watermarking
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88131

This thesis introduces a new quantization-based, blind watermarking algorithm

operating in the wavelet domain. This algorithm has several advantages as com-
pared to previously published algorithms. For example, the proposed algorithm is
better than the algorithm of Dugad in its ability to survive the same malicious
attacks while producing marked images of greater visual quality. The proposed
watermarking scheme is a blind scheme not requiring a file containing the positions
of the marked coefficients as in the method of Miyazaki.

6. The proposed watermarking scheme

The proposed watermarking scheme is a blind quantization-based scheme. A

block diagram detailing its steps is shown in Figure 1.

6.1 Watermark embedding

1. The cover image is decomposed into sub-bands using three levels of

Daubechies wavelet transform using filters of length 4.

2. Then the coefficients in the third level (except the LL3 and HH3 sub-bands)
which have magnitude higher than t1 and lower than t2 are chosen to hide in.
Let be the wavelet coefficient with maximum absolute in both HL3 and LH3
sub-bands. A threshold t = α is selected, as mentioned in Eq. (6):

0:01 < α < 0:1 and t2>t1>t: (6)

3. Then the binary watermark is created using a secret key, which is a seed of a
random generator; the watermark size should be of the same size as the two
sub-bands which are selected for embedding.

4.Then apply quantization to each of the selected wavelet coefficients.

Figure 1.
The proposed image watermarking scheme.

7
Cyberspace

The quantization process is done as shown in Eq. (7):

If ¼ 1 and >0, then ¼ t2 X1,

If ¼ 0 and >0, then ¼ t1 þ X1,
If ¼ 1 and < 0, then ¼ t2 þ X1,
If ¼ 0 and < 0, then ¼ t1 X1, (7)

where is the watermark bit corresponding to, and is the watermarked wavelet
coefficient. The parameter x1 narrows the range between the two quantization
levels t1 and t2 in order to perform a robust oblivious detection. Figure 2 shows the
watermark embedding in a positive wavelet coefficient.

5. After all the selected coefficients are quantized, the inverse discrete wavelet
transform (IDWT) is applied, and the watermarked image is obtained.

6.2 Watermark detection

1. The possibly corrupted watermarked image is transformed into the wavelet

domain using the same wavelet transform as in the embedding process.

2. The extraction is performed on the coefficients in the third wavelet level

(excluding the LL3 and HH3 sub-bands).

3. All the wavelet coefficients of magnitude higher than or equal to t1 + X2 and

less than or equal to t2 X2 are chosen, which are named w0sij . Note that the
value of X2 should be lower than the value of X1. This maintains that all the
marked coefficients are recovered and dequantized after being attacked. The
determination of parameters X1 and X2 to the watermarking technique gives a

Figure 2.
Watermark embedding for wavelet coefficients in the proposed scheme.

Figure 3.
Watermark detection in the proposed scheme.

8
Blind Wavelet-Based Image Watermarking
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88131

degree of tolerance to the system against attacks, i.e., the extraction of

watermark bits from the selected wavelet coefficients is done using Eq. (8).

If < ðt1 þ t2Þ=2, the recovered watermark bit is 0:

If ≥ ðt1 þ t2Þ=2, the recovered watermark bit is 1 (8)

The watermark detection process can be shown in Figure 3.

Then the correlation process is applied between the recovered watermark and
the original watermark, obtained via the secret key, just only in the locations of the
selected coefficients.

7. The histogram of equal-area division quantization method

in watermarking

The quantization levels are calculated using a method dependent on the image
content, and then round off the value of pixels to the nearest quantization level.
Using this method, the number of values transmitted over the channel is mini-
mized. HEAD is a quantization method in which the transmitted values are reduced
by mapping the values of image pixels to a finite number of quantization levels.
Process of HEAD quantization [11]:

1. First of all, get the histogram of the output, and then the area under the
histogram is divided into a number of vertical slices with equal areas. A width
of each slice is inversely proportional to its height. Quantization levels are
determined by the number of these slices. Both are equal.

2. The midpoint value which is found on the width of each slice is considered as a
quantization level.

3. This is called a nonuniform quantization where the density of the quantization

levels increases with increasing the probability of the occurrence of the pixel
value.

4.We mapped all the pixel values that lie within the width of a slice to the
quantization level that is represented by the midpoint of this slice.

7.1 Proposed DWT-HEAD watermarking method

7.1.1 Watermark embedding

The steps of watermark embedding can be summarized as follows:

1. The host image is transformed into the wavelet domain; three-level

Daubechies wavelet with filters of length 4 is used. The coefficients of HL3
coefficients are watermarked using HEAD quantization using two quantization
levels t1 and t2.

2. Each of the selected wavelet coefficients is quantized. After all the selected
coefficients are quantized, the inverse discrete wavelet transform is applied,
and the watermarked image is obtained.

9
Cyberspace

7.1.2 Watermark detection

1. The possibly corrupted watermarked image is transformed into the wavelet

domain using the same wavelet transform as in the embedding process.

2. The extraction is performed on the coefficients in the first level wavelet

transform (HL1).

3. All the wavelet coefficients of magnitude greater than or equal to t1 and less
than or equal to t2 are selected. The watermark bits are extracted from each of
the selected DWT coefficients with Eq. (9):

If < ðt1 þ t2Þ=2, then the recovered watermark bit is 0:

If ≥ ðt1 þ t2Þ=2, then the recovered watermark bit is 1: (9)

8. Simulation results

This section presents the results to compare between the schemes of LSB
method, Dugad’s method, Miyazaki’s method, and the proposed method. Several
images are watermarked using the four watermarking methods and subjected to
attacks. In order to measure the degradation suffered by host images after water-
mark insertion, the PSNR is used.

Figure 4.
(a) The thresholds t1, t2 vs. PSNR (t1=115, t2=200, PSNR=46) (b) Vs. cr for Mandrill. if image. (t1=115,
t2=200, cr = 0.4 in case of resizing) (c) The thresholds t1, t2 vs. PSNR.(t1=90, t2=200, PSNR=42) (d) Vs. cr for
hat. jpg image (t1=90, t2=200, cr = 0.6 in case of resizing).

10
Blind Wavelet-Based Image Watermarking
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88131

Figure 5.
(a) Original image. (b) Mandrill image marked using watermarking scheme of Dugad in the absence of attacks.
(c) Hat image marked using watermarking scheme of Miyazaki in the absence of attacks. (d) Mandrill image
marked using LSB. (e) Mandrill image marked using the proposed watermarking method in the absence of attacks.

For all the tests in this chapter, MATLAB is used. All tests are performed upon the
8-bit grayscale 256  256 Mandrill, Hat, and Lena images. To simulate the
watermarking schemes on the Mandrill image, we set t1 = 115, t2 = 200, and k = 0.1.
The suitable thresholds are obtained from the curves in Figure 4b. The watermarked
images are then attacked with JPEG compression with different compression ratios to
make the quality of the images at levels 5 (Q5), 10 (Q10), and 15 (Q15) at the JPEG
standard. Other attacks such as the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and
cropping attacks are also considered. The same schemes are also applied to the Hat
image with similar attacks. The thresholds used for this case are t1 = 90 and t2 = 200.
We find from the figures that the suitable thresholds are coming from the curves in
Figure 4d. To investigate the watermarking methods, we calculate the threshold (t)
by using fmax= 528.4 and k = 0.1 so the threshold t = 0.1* fmax=52.84, we will use
t1 = 90, t2 = 200 that give the tradeoff between PSNR and correlation as shown in
Figure 4. The attacks were used to test the new algorithm, we choose the thresholds
according to that gives the trade off between the high PSNR and the high Correlation
,in the case of mandrill we find that t1 = 115, t2 = 200, X1 = 20 and X2 = 10. Figure 5
shows this Watermarked image and the effect of attacking this watermarked image
with various attacks. The watermarked images are then attacked with JPEG at levels
Q5, Q10, and Q15, AWGN, and cropping.
It can be seen that the watermarking algorithm of Dugad is surviving all the
attacks. The high compression ratio using JPEG with quality 5 is one of the attacks
applied to the watermarked image and resizing from 256 to 128 is the other attack, it is
found that the watermark was not always detected. Results are shown in Tables 1–3.
Similar experiments and attacks are carried out for the algorithm in
Miyazaki method with t1 = 115 and t2 = 200; we find that the results are better than
that of Dugad method because it is a semi-blind method. Results are shown in
Tables 1 and 3.

11
Cyberspace

Scheme PSNR NC

LSB blind 49.9 1

Dugad’s blind 42.48 0.57

Miyazaki’s non-blind 44.65 1

Proposed scheme blind 46.60 1

Using t1 = 115, t2 = 200, and k = 0.1.

Table 1.
Comparing the proposed method with the other three methods of Dugad, Miyazaki, and LSB (Mandrill
image).

Types of attacks NC WM length in WM length out

No attacks 1 102 102

JPEG Q5 0.14 102 53

JPEG Q10 0.48 102 77

JPEG Q15 0.85 102 79

Gaussian (0.006) 0.54 102 54

Salt and pepper (0.15) 0.79 102 79

Cropping 0.48 102 38

Half sizing 0.39 102 48

Table 2.
Comparing NC value for the proposed method with the methods of Dugad, Miyazaki, and LSB.

NC

Type of attacks Blind Blind scheme of Non-Blind scheme of Blind proposed

LSB Dugad Miyazaki method

JPEG Q5 0.0111 0.57 0.75 0.14

JPEG Q10 0.01 0.24 1 0.48

JPEG Q50 0.0193 0.22 1 0.85

Gaussian 0.006 0.0052 0.52 1 0.57

Gaussian 0.01 0.011 0.19 0.93 0.4

Gaussian 0.1 0.0134 0.01 0.49 0.06

Salt and pepper 0.0030 0.53 0.87 0.45

0.015

Salt and pepper 0.0017 0.037 0.55 0.36

0.15

Salt and pepper 0.0027 0.001 0.01 0.29

0.5

Cropping 0.0054 0.58 0.95 0.39

Half sizing 0.4245 0.17 0.77 0.49

Subsample 0.7 0.5608 0.25 0.49 0.223

Subsample 0.4 0.3098 0.16 0.71 0.2

Table 3.
Results for the proposed scheme (Mandrill image) (with t1 = 115, t2 = 200, X1 = 20, and X2 = 10).

12
Blind Wavelet-Based Image Watermarking
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88131

Figure 6.
Attacked image with (a) JPEG quality 5, (b) JPEG quality 10, (c) JPEG quality 15, (d) Gaussian noise
(variance = 0.0058), (e) impulse noise (normalized density of 0.015), (f) cropping, and (g) half sizing
(followed by resizing back to the original size).

The same attacks were used to test the new algorithm; The thresholds are chosen
carefully to achieve tradeoff between the high PSNR and the high Correlation. In the
case of Mandrill, we found that t1 = 115, t2 = 200, X1 = 20, and X2 = 10. Figure 6 shows
this watermarked image and the effect of attacking this watermarked image with
various attacks. Table 3 presents the quantitative results for these various attacks.
However, the “cropping” attack poses a problem in that only 38 out of a
possible 102 watermark bits were used by the detector, thus decreasing the reliabil-
ity of the scheme. The scheme is not robust to JPEG quality 5 attack (just like the
Dugad method). Thus, while surviving the same attacks as the Dugad scheme, the
new scheme does not degrade the watermarked image to the same extent. From
Table 1, PSNR value is 42.48 dB. The PSNR recorded for the Miyazaki scheme is
equal to 44.65dB, the recorded PSNR for LSB is (49.9dB) and PSNR recorded for
the new scheme is (46.60dB).
Similar experiments and attacks are carried out for the algorithm in Miyazaki
method, Dugad method, LSB method, and the proposed method on Hat image and
Lena image, and the results are shown in Figures 7–10.
Table 4 presents the PSNR and NC for the proposed method and the other two
methods using Hat image. It is seen that our method does not degrade the
watermarked image to the same extent as the other two methods. Table 5 repre-
sents the NC for the attacked watermarked images in our proposed method and the
other existing methods.

13
Cyberspace

Figure 7.
(a) Original image. (b) Hat image marked using watermarking scheme of Dugad in the absence of attacks.
(c) Hat image marked using watermarking scheme of Miyazaki in the absence of attacks. (d) Hat image marked
using LSB scheme. (e) Hat image marked using the proposed watermarking method in the absence of attacks.

Figure 8.
Attacked image with (a) JPEG quality 5, (b) JPEG quality 10, (c) JPEG quality 15, (d) Gaussian noise
(variance = 0.0058), (e) impulse noise (normalized density of 0.015), (f) cropping, and (g) half sizing
(followed by resizing back to the original size).

14
Blind Wavelet-Based Image Watermarking
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88131

Figure 9.
(a) Original image. (b) Lena image marked using watermarking scheme of Dugad in the absence of attacks.
(c) Lena image marked using watermarking scheme of Miyazaki in the absence of attacks. (d) Lena image marked
using LSB scheme. (e) Lena image marked using the proposed watermarking method in the absence of attacks.

Figure 10.
Attacked image with (a) JPEG quality 5, (b) JPEG quality 10, (c) JPEG quality 15, (d) Gaussian noise
(variance = 0.0058), (e) impulse noise (normalized density of 0.015), (f) cropping, and (g) half sizing
(followed by resizing back to the original size).

15
Cyberspace

Scheme PSNR NC

LSB scheme blind 51 1

Dugad scheme blind 40.09 0.45

Miyazaki scheme non-blind 44.62 1

Proposed scheme blind 45.36 1

Using t1 = 90, t2 = 200, and k = 0.1.

Table 4.
Comparing the proposed method with the other two techs of Dugad, Miyazaki, and LSB (hat image).

NC

Type of attacks Blind LSB Blind scheme in Non-blind scheme of Blind proposed
scheme Dugad Miyazaki method

JPEG Q5 0.0015 0.27 0.44 0.28

JPEG Q10 0.0038 0.38 0.66 0.46

JPEG Q50 0.0015 0.45 1 0.88

Gaussian 0.006 0.0019 0.28 1 0.67

Gaussian 0.01 0.001 0.189 0.99 0.57

Gaussian 0.1 8.1606e-007 0.01 0.46 0.05

Salt and pepper 7.5838e-004 0.42 0.79 0.45

0.015

Salt and pepper 0.0053 0.024 0.54 0.12

0.15

Salt and pepper 0.0012 0.003 0.14 0.03

0.5

Cropping 1.5895e-005 0.20 0.32 0.39

Half sizing 0.0012 0.25 0.96 0.49

Subsample 0.7 9.3287e-004 0.31 0.97 0.76

Subsample 0.4 9.2566e-005 0.26 0.85 0.47

Table 5.
Comparing NC value for the proposed method with the methods of Dugad, Miyazaki, and LSB using hat
image.

NC WM length in WM length out

No attacks 1 367 367

JPEG Q5 0.14 367 203

JPEG Q10 0.48 367 271

JPEG Q15 0.85 367 319

Gaussian (0.006) 0.54 367 250

Salt and pepper (0.015) 0.79 367 293

Cropping 0.48 367 78

Half sizing 0.39 367 222

Table 6.
Results for the proposed scheme (hat image) with t1 = 90, t2 = 200, X1 = 20 and X2 = 10.

16
Blind Wavelet-Based Image Watermarking
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88131

Scheme PSNR NC

LSB scheme blind 50.86 1

Dugad scheme blind 37.42 0.36

Miyazaki scheme non-blind 39.27 1

Proposed scheme blind 45.29 1

Using t1 = 120, t2 = 200, and k = 0.1.

Table 7.
Comparing the proposed method with the other two methods of Dugad, Miyazaki, and LSB (Lena image).

NC

Type of attacks Blind LSB Blind scheme of Non-blind scheme of Blind proposed
scheme Dugad Miyazaki method

JPEG Q5 0.0083 0.15 0.5 0.14

JPEG Q10 0.0024 0.19 0.88 0.39

JPEG Q50 0.0014 0.24 0.98 0.83

Gaussian 0.006 0.0038 0.24 0.9 0.32

Gaussian 0.01 0.0013 0.16 0.76 0.25

Gaussian 0.1 4.5235e-004 0.007 0.28 0.04

Salt and pepper 0.0016 0.18 0.96 0.6

0.015

Salt and pepper 8.2995e-004 0.03 0.35 0.53

0.15

Salt and pepper 5.2785e-004 0.005 0.059 0.47

0.5

Cropping 0.0054 0.18 0.96 0.62

Half sizing 0.42 0.18 0.76 0.49

Subsample 0.7 0.56 0.25 0.83 0.67

Subsample 0.4 0.31 0.18 0.7 0.36

Table 8.
Comparing NC value for the proposed method with the methods of Dugad, Miyazaki, and LSB scheme using
Lena image.

NC WM length in WM length out

No attacks 1 129 129

JPEG Q5 0.14 129 57

JPEG Q10 0.39 129 74

JPEG Q15 0.83 129 102

Gaussian 0.006 0.32 129 66

Salt and pepper 0.015 0.6 129 41

Cropping 0.62 129 85

Table 9.
Results for the proposed scheme (Lena image) (with t1 = 120, t2 = 200, X1 = 20 and X2 = 10).

17
Cyberspace

However in Table 6, the “cropping” attack poses a problem in that only 78 out of a
possible 367 watermark bits were used by the detector, thus decreasing the reliability
of the scheme. The scheme is not robust to JPEG quality 5 attacks. Thus, while
surviving the same attacks as the Dugad scheme, the new scheme does not degrade
the watermarked image to the same extent. From Table 4, PSNR value is 45.36 dB.
Table 7 presents the PSNR and NC for the proposed method and the other two
methods using Lena image. It is seen that our method does not degrade the
watermarked image to the same extent as the other two methods. Table 8 repre-
sents the NC for the attacked watermarked images in our proposed method and the
other existing methods.

Figure 11.
Watermarked image using HEAD method with DWT with and without attacks for Lena image.
(a) Watermarked image PSNR = 51.7 dB without attacks. (b) Attacked image with Gaussian noise with
variance = 0.006. (c) Cropped image. (d) Rotated image with 3°. (e) Resized image from 256 to 128–256.
(f) Blurred image with 3  3 LPF.

Figure 12.
Watermarked image using the HEAD-based DWT method with and without attacks for hat image.
(a) Watermarked image PSNR = 49.4 dB without attacks. (b) Attacked image with Gaussian noise with
variance = 0.006. (c) Cropped image. (d) Rotated image with 3°. (e) Resized image from 256 to 128–256.
(f) Blurred image with 3  3 LPF.

18
Blind Wavelet-Based Image Watermarking
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88131

Proposed HEAD watermarking method Proposed HEAD watermarking method

for Lena image, t1 = 182 and t2 = 268 for Hat image, t1 = 236 and t2 = 333

No 1 1
attacks

Gaussian 0.75 0.85

0.006

Gaussian 0.55 0.53

0.01

Gaussian 0.14 0.16

0.1

Cropping 1 1

Rotation 0.3 0.076

Blurring 0.6 0.43

Resizing 0.42 0.5

0.5

Table 10.
Correlation values for our scheme of Lena and hat images.

However in Table 9, the “salt-and-pepper noise” attack poses a problem in that

only 41 out of a possible 129 watermark bits were used by the detector, thus
decreasing the reliability of the scheme.

8.1 Simulation results of HEAD quantization method

We simulate the watermarking schemes on Lena and Hat images. Results are
shown in Figures 11 and 12, respectively. The numerical evaluation metrics for all
schemes in the absence and presence of attacks are tabulated in Table 10. From the
table we notice that the proposed watermarking scheme achieves the lowest distor-
tion in the watermarked image in the absence of attacks, and we find that the
proposed method using wavelet gives the image with fidelity better than the other
existing methods and the table gives the correlation under the presence of attacks;
we notice also that a percentage of around 50% of the input watermark bits can be
extracted in the proposed scheme with most of the attacks.
We find that we can detect watermark at the presence of blurring, Gaussian
noise, cropping, and resizing attack; in the case of rotation attack, detection of
watermark is difficult.

9. Conclusions

With this proposed method, blindness, detectability, robustness against attacks,

and high watermarked image quality is maintained. Although the robustness of this
new scheme is not quite as strong as that presented by Miyazaki method, this can be
attributed to its blind nature compared to the semi-blind nature of the Miyazaki
method. In LSB method, the attacks like addition of noise with any value or com-
pression of the image using JPEG destroy the embedded watermark, and we cannot
detect or extract the watermark at all, although the watermark was recovered
perfectly in the ideal case.
Also the watermark may be removed without any effect done on the
watermarked image. A blind DWT-based image watermarking schemes depend on

19
Cyberspace

the HEAD quantization of coefficients to embed meaningful information in the

image. Experimental results have shown the superiority of the proposed schemes
from the host image quality point of view, robustness, and the blindness point
of view.

Author details

Abeer D. Algarni1 and Hanaa A. Abdallah1,2*

1 Department of Information Technology, College of Computer and Information

Sciences, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, KSA

2 Electronics and Communications Department, Faculty of Engineering,

Zagazig University, Egypt

*Address all correspondence to: [email protected]

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.

20
Blind Wavelet-Based Image Watermarking
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88131

References

[1] Zhu W, Xiong Z, Zhang Y. Western Australia: School of

Multiresolution watermarking for Information Systems, Curtin University
images and video. IEEE Transactions on of Technology. ICT_2005
Circuits and Systems for Video
Technology. 1999;9(4):545-550 [9] Miyazaki A, Yamamoto A, Katsura T.
A digital watermarking technique based
[2] Xia XG, Boncelet CG, Arce GR. A on the wavelet transform and its
multiresolution watermark for digital robustness on image compression and
images. In: Proceedings of the IEEE transformation. IEICE Transactions.
International Conference on Image Special Section on Cryptography and
Processing (ICIP 1997); Vol. 1; October Information Security. 1999;82(1):2-10
1997. pp. 548-551
[10] Zolghadrasli A, Rezazadeh S.
[3] Dugad K, Ratakonda R, Ahuja N. A Evaluation of spread spectrum
new wavelet-based scheme for watermarking schemes in the wavelet
watermarking images. In: Proceedings domain using HVS characteristics. The
of International Conference on Image International Journal of Information
Processing (ICIP 1998); Vol. 2; Chicago, Science and Technology. 2007;5(2):
IL; October 4–7, 1998. pp. 419-423 123-139

[4] Tao P, Eskicioglu AM. A robust [11] El-said SA, Hussein KFA, Fouad
multiple watermarking scheme in the MM. Adaptive lossy image compression
DWT domain. In: Optics East 2004 technique. In: Electrical and Computer
Symposium, Internet Multimedia Systems Engineering Conference
Management Systems V Conference; (ECSE’10); 2010
Philadelphia, PA; October 25–28, 2004.
pp. 133-144

[5] Cox IJ, Miller ML, Bloom JA.

Watermarking applications and their
properties. In: Proceedings of the IEEE
International Conference on
Information Technology: Coding and
Computing; 2000. pp. 6-10

[6] Tsai MJ, Yu KY, Chen YZ. Joint

wavelet and spatial transformation for
digital watermarking. IEEE Transactions
on Consumer Electronics. 2000;46(1):
241-245

[7] Barni M, Bartolini F, Cappellini V,

Piva A. A DCT-domain system for
robust image watermarking. Signal
Processing. Special Issue on Copyright
Protection and Control. 1998;66(3):
357-372

[8] Potdar VM, Chang E. A Quantization

Based Robust Image Watermarking
Algorithm in Wavelet Domain. Perth,

21