Colour-Adaptive Digital Image

Watermarking Technique

Shailesh Sapkal and B. G. Hogade

Abstract Copyright protection and owner authentication have become necessary

due to the circulation of large number of documents, images, audios, and videos
through the internet. Manipulations and duplications in multimedia files and docu-
ments are very easy due to advancement in the signal and image processing algo-
rithms. Therefore, it is very much important to devise watermarking techniques that
are robust against geometrical distortions and collision attacks. In this paper, we
proposed an adaptive digital image watermarking technique through colour features
and Arnold transform in wavelet domain. An attempt has been made to adaptively
transform the watermark image into a set of textures that visually match the colour
of the input host image since colour features are invariant with respect to translation
and rotation of the image. We first separate the three colours R, G, and B of the host
and watermark image. Next, we decomposed the separated images using wavelet
transform into sub-bands. Finally, low-frequency sub-band of the watermark image
is embedded into low-frequency sub-band of the host image using Arnold transform.
Experimental results on multiple host images and under various attacks using PSNR
and correlation coefficient, clearly demonstrates that the proposed algorithm is robust
and can be applied in colour image watermarking.

Keywords Adaptive watermarking technique · Colour feature · Arnold

transform · Collision attacks

1 Introduction

Rapid growth in high-speed computer networks and internet of things (IoT) has
explored means of new business, scientific, entertainment, and social opportunities.
Electronic publishing and advertising, information delivery, data sharing, messag-
ing, networking among computers, online shopping, banking, digital repositories and

S. Sapkal (B) · B. G. Hogade

Department of Electronics Engineering, Terna College of Engineering, Navi Mumbai, India
e-mail: shails016@gmail.com

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 799

B. Iyer et al. (eds.), Computing, Communication and Signal Processing,
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 810,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1513-8_81
800 S. Sapkal and B. G. Hogade

libraries, newspapers and magazines, online video, and audio, personal communica-
tion, and lots more have gained due to advancement in the internet. Transmission of
images, audios, and videos over the internet is greatly enhanced due to cost effec-
tiveness and improvement in technology. Computers have simplified storage and
manipulations of digital data that includes text, images, audios, and videos with very
high quality. This has resulted in a copy of a digital media which is exactly similar to
the original. With similar copies of digital multimedia distribution over the internet,
authentications and ownership are at more threat than ever due to the possibility of
unlimited copying [1, 2].
Watermarking has been proved to be an efficient tool for the protection of Intel-
lectual Property Rights (IPR) of image, audio, and video contents. Multimedia doc-
uments can be reproduced, changed, transformed, and diffused very easily through
sophisticated signal and image processing algorithms. In this context, it is important
to develop a system for copyright protection, protection against copying, and vali-
dation of contents. Digital watermark is a text/image/signature which is embedded
into copyright digital content such as audios, videos, images, or text. Digital water-
mark can be detected or extracted later on if required. Such text/image/signature
mostly carry the copyright or ownership identity of the content [3–5]. The process
of embedding digital watermark information into digital content is known as digital
watermarking.
Currently, the research in digital watermarking has been focused on mixing spatial
with transformed domains. Transformed domain approaches such as DFT, DWT, and
DCT concepts and adding more and more mathematical and statistical model. Also,
other interdisciplinary approaches in watermarking: for example, use of chaotic the-
ory, fractal image coding, and adaptive are explored. The wavelet transform decom-
poses the image into three spatial directions, i.e., horizontal, vertical, and diagonal.
Wavelet transform is computationally efficient and can be implemented by using
simple filter convolution [6–8]. It is generally observed that magnitude of DWT
coefficients is larger in the lowest bands (LL) at each level of decomposition as com-
pared to other bands (HH, LH, and HL). Thus, larger the magnitude of the wavelet
coefficient the more significant it becomes for watermarking applications [9–12]. It
is also observed that the extraction of watermark at lower resolutions is computation-
ally effective since very few frequencies are involved at every successive resolution
level. Edges, textures, and patterns in an image are easily located through high-
resolution sub-bands. Arnold transform is commonly employed in two-dimensional
domains for scattering of the pixels in an image. It destroys the relationship between
the pixels which are evenly distributed, provides additional security to watermark,
and also increases robustness of watermarking algorithm [13]. Principle component
analysis (PCA) along with wavelet coefficients is applied mostly to blind or semi-
blind watermarking techniques to acquire some features for decoding purpose [14].
PCA technique has resulted in very robust feature extraction and data extraction.
In this paper, we proposed adaptive digital image watermarking technique through
colour features and Arnold transform in wavelet domain. An attempt has been made
to adaptively transform the watermark image into a set of textures that visually match
the colour of the input host image since colour features are invariant with respect to
Colour-Adaptive Digital Image Watermarking Technique 801

translation and rotation of the image. We first separate the three colours R, G, and B
of the host and watermark image. Next, we decomposed the separated images using
wavelet transform into sub-bands. Finally, low-frequency sub-band of the watermark
image is embedded into low-frequency sub-band of the host image using Arnold
transform. The paper is organized as follows Sect. 1 introduces to watermarking,
Sect. 2 describes embedding and extraction algorithm in details. Results are discussed
in Sect. 3 and finally concluded in Sect. 4.

2 Watermark Embedding and Extraction Algorithm

In this section, watermark embedding algorithm through colour features using Arnold
transform and wavelet transform is discussed along with extraction algorithm. Water-
mark extraction is mostly the reverse process of embedding.

2.1 Embedding Algorithm

Let I and w represent the 8-bit colour input host and watermark image of the size
m × n. The steps involved in the embedding of the watermark image into host image
are as follows:
1. Read the input host and watermark image of the size m × n.
2. Separate the R, G, and B colour channels for both the host and watermark
images.
3. Each colour channel R, G, and B of the host image was decomposed into four
sub-bands LL, LH, HL and HH using Daubechies two-dimensional discrete
wavelet transform.
4. Similarly each colour channel R, G, and B of the watermark image was
decomposed into four sub-bands LL, LH, HL, and HH using Debauches two-
dimensional discrete wavelet transform.
5. Determine the number of iterations imax and initialized counter i  0 for Arnold
transform.
6. LL sub-band of the watermark image for all channels (R, G, and B) was scram-
bled using Arnold transform through equation
  
m , n  [1, 1; 1, 2] [m, n] mod 2 (1)

7. Increment the counter i  i + 1.

8. Repeat steps 6–7 if i < imax else stop.
9. Scrambled LL sub-band of the watermark image for all channels (R, G, and B)
was embedded into their respective LL sub-band channels (R, G, and B) of the
host image using equation
802 S. Sapkal and B. G. Hogade

z  (1−alpha) ∗ x + alpha ∗ y (2)

where alpha is the visibility coefficients whose value can be set from 0 to 1, x
is the LL coefficients of the colour channels of the host image and y is the LL
coefficients of the colour channels of the watermark image and z is the resultant
LL coefficients of the watermark embedded host image.
10. Two-dimensional Daubechies inverse discrete wavelet transform is applied on
the resultant LL sub-band coefficients along with LH, HL, and HH sub-band
coefficients of the host image.
11. Concatenate all the colour channels to form the resultant watermark embedded
image.
The watermarked embedded image I emd is obtained and the process of watermark
embedding is completed. The resultant image contents watermark whose visibility
can be controlled using parameter alpha. The colour features are invariant with respect
to translation and rotation of the image. Arnold transform is commonly employed in
two-dimensional domains for scattering of the pixels in an image. Thus, both provide
the much-needed robustness to algorithm.

2.2 Decryption Algorithm

Let I emd and I represent the 8-bit colour watermark embedded input and host image
of the size m × n, respectively. The steps involved in the process of watermark
extraction from the host image are as follows.
1. Read the watermark-embedded input and host images of the size m × n.
2. Separate the R, G, and B colour channels for both the host and watermark
embedded images.
3. Each colour channel R, G, and B of the watermark embedded image was
decomposed into four sub-bands LL, LH, HL, and HH using Debauches two-
dimensional discrete wavelet transform.
4. Similarly each colour channel R, G, and B of the host image was decomposed
into four sub-bands LL, LH, HL, and HH using Debauches two-dimensional
discrete wavelet transform.
5. Scrambled LL sub-band of the watermark embedded image for all channels (R,
G, and B) was used to extract scrambled LL sub-band channels (R, G, and B)
of the watermark image using equation

y  z/alpha + x−(x/alpha) (3)

6. Determine the number of iterations imax and initialized counter i  0 for Arnold
transform.
7. LL sub-band of the watermark image for all channels (R, G and B) was descram-
bled using Arnold transform through equation
Colour-Adaptive Digital Image Watermarking Technique 803

Table 1 Parameters without attack

Parameters Lena Baboon Flower Fruits
PSNR (dB) 38.16 38.16 38.16 38.16
NCC 0.573 0.572 0.573 0.575

  
m , n  [2, −1; −1, 1] [m, n] mod 2 (4)

8. Increment the counter i  i + 1.

9. Repeat steps 7–8 if i < imax else stop.
10. Two-dimensional Debauches inverse discrete wavelet transform is applied on
the resultant LL sub-band coefficients of all colour channels.
11. Concatenate all the colour channels to form the resultant watermark image.
The complete process of embedding and extraction of watermark is discussed
using colour features and Arnold transform. The watermark image obtained after
extraction process was used to measure the watermarking parameters such imper-
ceptibility, security, and robustness to common attacks such as noise, compression,
and geometric attack.

3 Experimental Results

In this section, the qualitative and quantitative performance of the adaptive tech-
nique through colour features and Arnold transform is presented. Results for the
four images containing varying amount of colours are provided for evaluation of the
algorithm. Figure 1 shows the various host images and watermark image used for
demonstration. Also, each host image was selected to determine the capability of
the algorithm for invisible watermarking. Image lena has rich mix of colours which
is distributed overall within the image. Image baboon has no visible colour except
black and white. Whereas, images fruits and flower are rich in colours with less dis-
tribution within the images or concentrated in small areas. Peak signal-to-noise ratio
(PSNR) and normalized cross correlation coefficients (NCC) are used to compute the
imperceptibility and robustness of the algorithm. NCC also indicates the correlation
between original and retrieved watermark images. Furthermore, algorithm embeds
the watermark in colour features to promote robustness to most common attacks
such as noise, geometric and compression attack. To evaluate the robustness, we
employed geometrical attack such as rotation, noise attack such as salt and pepper
noise and JPEG compression attack. Figures 2 and 3 shows the respective extracted
watermark from lena, baboon, flower and fruits images without and with attack,
respectively. Tables 1 and 2 list the measured parameters PSNR and NCC for the
retrieved watermark image without and with attack, respectively.
804 S. Sapkal and B. G. Hogade

Lena Baboon

Flower Fruits
(a) Host images

(b) Watermark image

Fig. 1 Images

Table 2 Parameters with attack

Attacks Parameters Lena Flower Fruits
Noise PSNR (dB) 32.74 33.34 31.83
NCC 0.509 0.510 0.514
Geometric PSNR (dB) 38.16 38.16 38.16
NCC 0.573 0.573 0.575
Compression PSNR (dB) 37.54 33.32 32.01
NCC 0.536 0.446 0.457
Colour-Adaptive Digital Image Watermarking Technique 805

Fig. 2 Extracted watermark image from respective host images without attack

(a) Noise attack (b) Geometric attack

(c) Compression attack

Fig. 3 Extracted watermark image from respective host images with attack
806 S. Sapkal and B. G. Hogade

4 Conclusion

In this paper, we proposed adaptive digital image watermarking technique through

colour features and Arnold transform in wavelet domain. Results clearly show the
host images with different types of colour compositions achieve better masking capa-
bilities. Also, the value of PSNR is greater than 30 dB indicates higher robustness
after most common attacks. The colour features are invariant with respect to trans-
lation and rotation of the image. Images with overall colour distribution are more
suitable for adaptive colour watermarking technique. Comparatively, it is understood
that the value of NCC is not on higher side due to only LL sub-band coefficients were
used to generate watermark image during extraction process. Further, it is required to
consider all sub-band coefficients to achieve improvements in NCC. The simulation
was done using MATLAB software on Intel i5 processor with 3 GHz speed and 4 GB
RAM.

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