30 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security,

Vol. 1, No. 2, November 2009

Wavelet based Watermarking Technique using

Simple Preprocessing Methods
S.MaruthuPerumal1, B.Vijaya Kumar 2, L.Sumalatha3 and Dr. V.Vijaya Kumar 4
1
Research Scholar, Dr MGR University, Chennai, T.N. India.
Associate Professor & Head, Department of IT, Godavari Institute of Engineering & Technology, Rajahmundry, A.P. India.
maruthumail@gmail.com
2
Professor & Head, Department of CSE, Lords Institute of Engineering & Technology, Hyderabad, A.P. India.
vijaysree.b@gmail.com
3
Associate Professor & Head, Department of CSE, University college of Engineering, JNTU Kakinada, A.P. India.
sumapriyatham@yahoo.com
4
Dean & Professor, Department of CSE&IT, Godavari Institute of Engineering & Technology, Rajahmundry, A.P.India.
vakulabharanam@hotmail.com

Abstract: The Sudden increase in the internet applications has
lead people into digital world. Digital watermarking facilitates e-
client distribution, reproduction and manipulation over
networked information systems for image, audio clips, and
videos. To address this, the present paper proposes a digital
image watermarking technique based on various preprocessing
methods. The watermark is inserted on the selected pixels based
on some preprocessing methods applied on a L-level wavelet
transformed image. The Level L has been chosen based on the
size of the watermark and window. To test the robustness of the
proposed method, various peak signal noise ratios are applied.
The experimental result indicates imperceptibility, security,
unambiguity and robustness of the present method.
Keywords: Wavelet Transformation, Preprocessing, Peak
Signal Noise Ratio.
1. Introduction
The great advancement taken place in the field of Internet
has facilitated the transmission, wide distribution, and
access of multimedia data in an effortless manner. The use
of digitally formatted image and video information is
rapidly increasing along with the development of
multimedia broadcasting, network databases and electronic
publishing [3, 4, 5, 6, 19]. All these developments are
proceeding with a serious drawback: if the media data is
copyrighted, the unlimited copying of media data may cause
considerable financial loss, the protection of intellectual
property rights has become an important issue in the
network-centric world. One effective solution to the
unauthorized distribution problem is the embedded of digital
watermarks into multimedia data [10]. New progress in
digital technologies, such as compression techniques, has
brought new challenges in to watermarking. Various
watermarking schemes that can employ different techniques
have been proposed over the last few years [1, 7, 9, 10, 13-
19]. To be effective, a watermark must be imperceptible
within its host, easily extracted by the owner, and robust to
intentional and unintentional distortions [2]. In specific,
DWT has wide applications in the area of image
authentication. This is because it has many specifications
which can make the watermarking process robust. In the
recent times wavelet based digital watermarking has
become, a very active research area. Watermarking
approaches are classified into two categories: Spatial
domain and Transform domain methods. Transform domain
watermarking techniques are more robust in comparison to
spatial domain methods. Among the transform domain
watermarking techniques, Discrete Wavelet Transform
(DWT) based watermarking techniques are gaining more
popularity because of their superior modeling of Human
Visual System [2]. To achieve copyright protection, a
watermarking scheme for digital images must have the
following properties: (1) Imperceptibility or
low degree obtrusiveness: it should be extremely difficult to
distinguish between the host image and the watermarked
image. The quality of the image should not be compromised.
(2) Security: a watermark should be statistically
undetectable. The watermarking algorithm must be public,
with security depending only on keeping the key secret [11,
12, 15]. Only the owner of the host image should be able to
extract or remove the embedded watermark. (3) Fast
embedding / retrieval: The speed of a watermark embedding
algorithm is important for applications where documents are
marked ‘on the fly’ (4) No reference to original document:
For some applications, it is necessary to recover the
watermark without requiring the original, unmarked
document (which would otherwise be stored in a secure
archive). (5) Multiple watermarks: It may also be desirable
to embed multiple watermarks in a document. For example,
an image might be marked with a unique watermark each
time when it is downloaded [8]. (6) Robustness: when the
quality of the host image is degraded by attacks such as
blurring, sharpening, scaling, cropping, noising, or JPEG
compression, it should still be possible to retrieve and
identify embedded watermark. The watermark must be
retrievable if common image processing or geometric
distortions are performed. (7) Unambiguity: the retrieved
watermark should clearly verify the copyright owner of the
image. In addition, ideal watermarking schemes should also
 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security, 31
Vol. 1, No. 2, November 2009

be able to solve the problem of multiple claims of
ownership.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: In Section 2,
the wavelet transformation of images is discussed in detail.
The proposed method along with various pre-processing
methods is explained in Section 3. In Section 4, the
performance of the proposed method is analyzed. Finally, 5th
section deals with conclusions.
the help of a flow chart given in figure 2. Based on the
flowchart a block diagram for lena image is given in figure
3. The block diagram of figure 3 clearly indicates the
process of inserting the watermark text in lena image after
three levels of wavelet transform on LL sub image. The
watermark can be inserted on any LL, LH, HL or HH sub
bands. The same process can be applied on any wavelet
transform.

2. Wavelet Transformation of Images START

The wavelet transformation is a mathematical tool for
decomposition. The wavelet transform is identical to a
hierarchical sub band system, where the sub bands are Cover Image(C)
logarithmically spaced in frequency. The basic idea of the Watermark (X)
DWT for a two-dimensional image is described as follows. X-Characters
An image is first decomposed into four parts based on
frequency sub bands, by critically sub sampling horizontal
Total No. of Bits
and vertical channels using sub band filters and named as of Watermark
Low-Low (LL), Low-High (LH), High-Low (HL), and High- W=2*X*b
High (HH) sub bands as shown in figure 1. To obtain the
next coarser scaled wavelet coefficients, the sub band LL is
further decomposed and critically sub sampled. This process
is repeated several times, which is determined by the C=N*M*b
application at hand. The block diagram of this process is
shown in figure 1. Each level has various bands information
such as low–low, low–high, high–low, and high–high COUNT =1
frequency bands. Furthermore, from these DWT
coefficients, the original image can be reconstructed. This
reconstruction process is called the inverse DWT (IDWT). If
C[m,n] represents an image, the DWT and IDWT for IF Y Compress the
C[m,n] can similarly be defined by implementing the DWT C>W && Image by using
COUNT<=4 DWT
and IDWT on each dimension and separately.

N ++COUNT

Divide the Compressed

Image into non Overlapping
Equal Blocks

Select the hit pixel in which

watermark is to be inserted
based on preprocessing
methods

Figure 1. Representation of L-Levels of DW Transformation

Insert Watermark
3. Methodology
To carryout the proposed method, the compressed image STOP
is divided into non overlapping blocks of size 0…m-1 x 0…
m-1, where m-1 is an integer. A preprocessing method is Figure 2. Flowchart for the proposed scheme
applied on the selected window. Based on the preprocessing
method the hit pixel is decided. Hit pixel is a pixel where
the watermark will be inserted. This process is applied on
the L level wavelet transformed image. The L level is
chosen by the principle that the wavelet image should
contain at least double the number of pixels than the
required wavelet text. The entire process is explained with
32 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security,
Vol. 1, No. 2, November 2009

79 86 74 96 81 76

74 75 82 86 84 82

76 75 79 84 82 79

76 79 81 83 80 76

78 77 74 72 70 74

82 80 76 79 78 80

Figure 3. Block diagram of watermark insertion on wavelet

Figure 4. Grey level values of an image of 6 x 6
3.1 Preprocessing Methods
For the selection of the hit pixel various preprocessing
methods are applied. The applied preprocessing methods are 79 86 74 96 81 76
useful in smoothening, reducing noise, contrast and
intensity etc. The preprocessing methods depend on image 74 75 82 86 84 82
characteristics in a predefined region about each pixel in the
image. The preprocessing methods used in the present paper 76 75 79 84 82 79
are mean, median, mode, variance and standard variation
(SD) as shown from equation 1 to 5 respectively 76 79 81 83 80 76
 z −1 z −1 
 ∑ ∑ P(i, j ) 
 i =0 j =0  ..……………...……(1) 78 77 74 72 70 74
Mean = int  
z
 
82 80 76 79 78 80
 

  z −1 z −1
 Figure 5. Hit pixels of the original image of figure 4
Median = middlevalue ASC  ∀ ∀ P (i , j )  
  i=0 j =0   ..…(2)
4. Experimental Result and Analysis
For the experimental analysis different images of size
 z −1 z −1

Mode = mod value ∀ ∀ P(i, j )  …....….….(3) 64x64 are selected and the proposed method is applied. The
 i =0 j =0  cover images considered in the present paper are brain
image, lena image, barbara image, camera man image, and
baboon image which are shown from figure 6(a) to 6(e)
 z −1 z −1 z −1 z −1

 ∑∑ P (i, j ) ∑∑ ( P (i, j )) 2  … .(4) respectively. The figure 7(a) to 7(e) shows 3-level wavelet
 i=0 j =0 i =0 j = 0  compressed image. The figure 8(a) to 8(e) shows the wavelet
Variance = int  − 
z z decomposed image with the watermark text “MGRU”
  embedded. The figure 9(a) to 9(e) shows the reconstructed
  watermarked image
1/ 2
 z −1 z −1 z −1 z −1
 To measure the quality of watermarked images, the peek
 ∑∑ P (i , j ) ∑∑ ( P (i , j )) 2  signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) is used. Which is given in the
SD =  i =0 j =0 − i =0 j =0  ……….(5)

equation (6)
z z   …(6)
  
PSNR ( C , W ' ) = 10 log 
255 2 xMxN 
  
 ∑ ∑
M
i =1
N
j =1
[f ( x i y j ) − f '( xi y j ) ]2 

where P(i,j) represents the gray level value at the location
i,j of the window, z is no. of pixels in the block. where C is the cover image and W` is the watermarked
image, with dimensions N X M. The PSNR is applied for all
The figure 4 shows the grey level image of size 6 x 6. cover images of figure 6(a) to 6(e) and watermarked images
Whereas figure 5 shows the hit pixel of figure 4, which are at figure 9(a) to figure 9(e) and the results are tabulated in
marked with circles based on the mean preprocessing table 1. The table 1 clearly indicates that PSNR values for
method. all the proposed preprocessing methods. From the table 1 it
is clearly evident that all the proposed preprocessing
methods are showing above 50db, which indicates the high
robustness.
 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security, 33
Vol. 1, No. 2, November 2009

Table 1: Five different reconstructed images expressed in The reconstructed watermarked images of figure 9(a) to
PSNR (db) for different methods 9(e) clearly indicate the clarity, imperceptibility, robustness
of the image when compared to figure 6(a) to 6(e).

5. Conclusion
The PSNR values clearly indicate that high robustness of
the proposed method. The proposed preprocessing
techniques can be extended on any window size and the
(a) (b) (c) watermark content may also be increased from minimum of
two characters to maximum of any length depending on the
size of the image. The advantage of preprocessing methods
for selecting the hit pixel over the other methods on wavelet
image is of maintaining the important the characteristics of
the image without any loss of image content or the
information in the selected region.

(d) (e)
Figure 6. The cover images a) Brain Image b) Lena Image Appendix A: Processing Methods
c)Barbara Image d) Cameraman Image e) Baboon Image
Images Brain Lena Barbara Camera Baboon
Used Pre Image Image Image Man Image Image
Processing
Methods

54.1
53.88 56.19 53.4 52.76
Mean 5
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
Figure 7. Compressed cover image a) Brain Image b) Lena 53.1
53.40 55.05 53.88 52.97
Image c)Barbara Image d) Cameraman Image e) Baboon Median 8
Image
53.8
53.40 54.15 53.88 55.05
Mode 8

55.4
54.43 53.88 53.40 55.40
Variance 0

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) 53.6

Standard 54.43 53.88 53.88 54.73
3
Figure 8. Compressed watermarked image a) Brain Image Deviation
b) Lena Image c)Barbara Image d) Cameraman Image
e) Baboon Image
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to express their gratitude to
Sri K.V.V. Satyanarayana Raju, Chairman, and Sri K. Sasi
Kiran Varma, Managing Director, Chaitanya group of
Institutions for providing necessary infrastructure. Authors
would like to thank Dr MGR University Chennai for the
suggestions and guidelines given and the anonymous
(a) (b) (c)
reviewers for their valuable comments.

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(IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security,
Vol. 1, No. 2, November 2009
Authors Profile
S.MaruthuPerumal received his M.E.
in Computer Science and Engineering
from Sathyabama University Chennai
in 2005. He is having eleven years of
teaching experience. At present he is
working as an Associate Professor and
Head Department of IT Godavari
Institute of Engineering and
Technology, Rajahmundry. He is Pursuing his Ph.D at Dr
MGR University Chennai under the Guidance of Dr V
VijayaKumar His research interest includes Image
processing, Digital Watermarking, Steganography and
Security.He is a life member of ISCA,IAENG.
B Vijaya Kumar completed his M S in
CSE from DPI, Donetsk, USSR in 1993. He
worked as Software Engineer in Serveen
Software Systems pvt. Ltd. Secunderabad,
India for four years (1993-1997). After that
he worked as Sr. Assistant Professor in
JBIET, Hyderabad for three years later
joined in Royal Institute of Technology &
Science, Hyderabad as Associate Professor
and worked there for four years. Presently he is working as
Professor & Head of CSE Department in Lords Institute of
Engineering & Technology, Hyderabad, India. He is pursuing his
Ph.D. in Computer Science under the guidance of Dr
Vakulabharanam Vijaya Kumar. He is a life member of CSI, ISTE,
NESA and ISCA. He has published more than 10 research
publications in various National, Inter National conferences,
proceedings and Journals.
L. Sumalatha completed her B.Tech from
Acahrya Nagarjuna University and M.Tech
CSE from JNT University Hyderabad. She
is working as Head Departement of CSE
College of Engineering JNT University
Kakinada. She is having nine years of
teaching experience. She is pursuing her
Ph.D from JNT University Kakinada. Her
research areas includes network security,
digital imaging and digital watermarking.
Vakulabharanam Vijaya Kumar received
integrated M.S. Engg, degree from
Tashkent Polytechnic Institute (USSR) in
1989. He received his Ph.D. degree in
Computer Science from Jawaharlal Nehru
Technological University (JNTU) in 1998.
He has served the JNT University for 13
years as Assistant Professor and Associate
Professor and taught courses for M.Tech
students. He has been Dean for Dept of CSE and IT at Godavari
Institute of Engineering and Technology since April, 2007.His
research interests include Image Processing, Pattern Recognition,
Network Security, Steganography, Digital Watermarking, and
Image retrieval. He is a life member for CSI, ISTE, IE, IRS, ACS
and CS. He has published more than 120 research publications in
various National, Inter National conferences, proceedings and
Journals.