Optimal image watermark decoding

Abstract

Not much has been done in utilizing the available information at the decoder to optimize the decoding performance of watermarking systems. This paper focuses on analyzing different decoding methods, namely, Minimum Distance, Maximum Likelihood and Maximum a-posteriori decoding given varying information at the decoder in the blind detection context. Specifically, we propose to employ Markov random fields to model the prior information given the embedded message is a structured logo. The application of these decoding methods in Quantization Index Modulation systems shows that the decoding performance can be improved by Maximum Likelihood decoding that exploits the property of the attack and Maximum a-posteriori decoding that utilizes the modeled prior information in addition to the property of the attack. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.