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Complex Wavelet-Domain Image Watermarking Algorithm Using \(L_1\)-Norm Function-Based Quantization

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Abstract

Digital watermarking is an efficient and promising means to protect intellectual properties. Based on growing attention on the intellectual property, protection of the product ownership becomes extremely important and necessary. In this paper, a quantization-based image watermarking method is proposed using dual-tree complex wavelet transform (DT-CWT) and the \(L_1\)-norm function. To enhance the robustness, the watermark is embedded in the DT-CWT domain of the high-frequency sub-band images by using the \(L_1\)-norm function. The performance of the proposed scheme is investigated in terms of image quality (peak signal-to-noise ratio or PSNR) and robustness (bit error ratio or BER). Experimental results show that the proposed method is robust against noise attack, filtering, JPEG compression, amplitude scaling and gain attack with a good invisibility.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 61228102, the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China under Grant No. 20165024411 and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant No. 2015B01614. The authors would like to thank professor N. Kingsbury for providing the software code to perform the dual-tree complex wavelet transform and thank Dr. Qiao Li for sharing the software code of his paper in the literature [13].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electronic Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 611731, People’s Republic of China

    Jinhua Liu, Shuai Wang & Ce Zhu

  2. School of Mathematics and Computer Science, Shangrao Normal University, Shangrao, 334001, People’s Republic of China

    Jinhua Liu

  3. School of Computer and Information, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, People’s Republic of China

    Yuanyuan Xu

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  1. Jinhua Liu
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  4. Ce Zhu
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Correspondence to Jinhua Liu.

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Liu, J., Xu, Y., Wang, S. et al. Complex Wavelet-Domain Image Watermarking Algorithm Using \(L_1\)-Norm Function-Based Quantization. Circuits Syst Signal Process 37, 1268–1286 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00034-017-0607-5

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