Wavelet domain print-scan and JPEG resilient data hiding method

Abstract

In this paper we present a print-scan resilient method to embed multibit messages into images. Multilevel watermarking principles are applied in order to embed a reference watermark and the message bits. Methods to embed a robust spatial domain reference watermark, utilizing HVS are proposed and methods to improve the estimation of affine transformation parameters from a periodic reference watermark are considered. The multibit message is embedded on the approximation coefficients of the wavelet transform, utilizing JND profile estimation and additive spread spectrum techniques. A blind correlation based detection method is made use of to recover the message. In the experiments the imperceptuality issues related to multilevel watermarking are considered with different parameter settings and the robustness against print-scan attack and JPEG compression is measured and the results are shown. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.