An enhanced semi-blind DWT–SVD-based watermarking technique for digital images

Abstract

This paper presents a semi-blind hybrid watermarking technique based on singular value decomposition (SVD) and discrete wavelet transformation (DWT). The proposed technique decomposes the host image using DWT and combines the singular values (SVs) of the watermark and the selected sub-bands. A binary watermark is used to be embedded in the grey-scale original image. This watermark image passes through multiple operations before embedding. The watermark is converted into a vector, which is permuted into scrambled data by using a key as the initial random seed of this process. Experimental results show that the proposed technique is able to resist a variety of attacks.

Keywords:

• digital watermarking
• discrete wavelet transform
• singular value decomposition
• Haar wavelet
• digital rights management system