A novel hybrid of DCT and SVD in DWT domain for robust and invisible blind image watermarking with optimal embedding strength

• Published in: Multimedia tools and applications Vol. 77; no. 11; pp. 13197 - 13224
• Main Authors: Kang, Xiao-bing, Zhao, Fan, Lin, Guang-feng, Chen, Ya-jun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.06.2018; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Computer Communication Networks; Computer Science; Curve fitting; Data Structures and Information Theory; Decomposition; Discrete cosine transform; Discrete Wavelet Transform; Embedding; Least squares; Multimedia Information Systems; Optimization; Robustness; Signal processing; Singular value decomposition; Special Purpose and Application-Based Systems; Watermarking; Wavelet transforms; Robust blind watermarking; Logistic chaotic map; Discrete wavelet transform; Least squares curve fitting; Discrete cosine transform; Singular value decomposition
• ISSN: 1380-7501; 1573-7721
• DOI: 10.1007/s11042-017-4941-1

To optimize the tradeoff between imperceptibility and robustness properties, this paper proposes a robust and invisible blind image watermarking scheme based on a new combination of discrete cosine transform (DCT) and singular value decomposition (SVD) in discrete wavelet transform (DWT) domain using least-square curve fitting and logistic chaotic map. Firstly cover image is decomposed into four subbands using DWT and the low frequency subband LL is partitioned into non-overlapping blocks. Then DCT is applied to each block and several particular middle frequency DCT coefficients are extracted to form a modulation matrix, which is used to embed watermark signal by modifying its largest singular values in SVD domain. Optimal embedding strength for a specific cover image is obtained from an estimation based on least-square curve fitting and provides a good compromise between transparency and robustness of watermarking scheme. The security of the watermarking scheme is ensured by logistic chaotic map. Experimental results demonstrate the better effectiveness of the proposed watermarking scheme in the perceptual quality and the ability of resisting to conventional signal processing and geometric attacks, in comparison with the related existing methods.