Color Image Watermarking using JND Sampling Technique

Abstract

This paper presents a color image watermarking scheme using Just Noticeable Difference (JND) Sampling Technique in spatial domain. The nonlinear JND Sampling technique is based on physiological capabilities and limitations of human vision. The quantization levels have been computed using the technique for each of the basic colors R, G and B respectively for sampling color images. A watermark is scaled to half JND image and is added to the JND sampled image at known spatial position. For transmission of the image over a channel, the watermarked image has been represented using Reduced Biquaternion (RB) numbers. The original image and the watermark are retrieved using the proposed algorithms. The detection and retrieval techniques presented in this paper have been quantitatively benchmarked with a few contemporary algorithms using MSE and PSNR. The proposed algorithms outperform most of them.

Keywords: Color image watermarking, JND sampling, Reduced Biquaternion, Retrieval