Digital Watermarking

Unit-3
 What is a watermark ?
What is a watermark ? A distinguishing mark impressed on
paper during manufacture; visible when paper is held up to
the light (e.g. INR Bill)

the way to protect Multimedia files

 Digital Watermarking?

 Allows users to embed SPECIAL PATTERN or SOME

DATA into digital contents without changing its
perceptual quality.
 When data is embedded, it is not written at HEADER
PART but embedded directly into digital media itself
by changing media contents data
 Watermarking is a key process for the PROTECTION
of copyright ownership of electronic data.
 Features of Watermarking
 Invisible/Inaudible
 Information is embedded without digital content
degradation, because of the level of embedding operation is
too small for human to notice the change.
 Inseparable
 The embedded information can survive after some
processing, compression and format transformation.
 Unchanging data file size
 Data size of the media is not changed before and after
embedding operation because information is embedded
directly into the media.
CLASSIFICATION OF WATERMARK

 According to Human Perception

 Invisible
 Visible

 According to Robustness
 Fragile
 Semi fragile
 Robust

 According to types of Document

 Text
 Image
 Audio
 Video
 Visible Watermark
• Logo or seal of the organization which holds the
rights to the primary image, it allows the primary
image to be viewed, but still visible it clearly as the
property of the owning organization.

• Overlay the watermark in such a way that makes it

difficult to remove, if the goal of indicating property
rights is to be achieved.
 Invisible Watermark
• Embedding level is too small to notice
• Can be retrieved by extraction software
• Applications:
– Authentication
– Copyrighting
– Etc…
Invisible Watermark
CLASSIFICATION BY
“ROBUSTNESS”
 Fragile/Semi Fragile/Robust
• A watermark is called fragile if it fails to be
detected after the slightest modification.
• A watermark is called semi-fragile if it resists
beginning transformations but fails detection
after malignant transformations.
• A watermark is called robust if it resists a
designated class of transformations.