For robust watermarking, if the watermarked image is

modified (as when compressed for transmitting), the

detected watermark should still match the embedded
one well to give a clear judgment of the existence of the
watermark.
Simple implementation and fast computations.

Thus the choices were limited to only two possible

ones, the DG (dark green) locations for 3 coefficient
and the LG (light green) locations for 3 or 4
coefficient to serve the proposed algorithm.

III. THE PROPOSED 2D-DCT BASED TECHNIQUE

The traditional and still most popular DCT-based
algorithm allows an image to be broken up into different
frequency bands, making it much easier to embed
watermarking information into the middle frequency bands
of an image. The middle frequency bands are chosen such
that they avoid the most visual important parts of the image
(low frequencies) without over-exposing themselves to
removal through compression and noise attacks (high
frequencies) [4,5]. One such technique utilizes the
comparison of middle-band DCT coefficients to encode a
single bit (0 if specified coefficient is smaller than the other
one or 1 if it is bigger) into a DCT block.

Figure (2): Analyzing the possible locations of the 4 DCT

coefficients

c.

The proposed technique in this paper can be considered as

an improvement of the classic DCT approach with few
modifications that could be listed as follows:
a.

Using the JPEG compression algorithm steps until

having the quantized 2D-DCT blocks, then the
watermark bit in the middle frequency range as in the
classic algorithm. This is helpful against compression
since it reduces the influence of quantization and
rounding in the extraction stage.
b. Increasing the number used coefficients to three and
four which will be more attractive to obtain better
results. Actually few conditions must be met when
choosing these coefficients location :
Coefficients must be located in the middle
frequency range (the colored area in Figure (2))
which is chosen as the embedding region to
provide additional resistance to lossy compression
techniques while avoiding significant modification
of the original image.
Within the
area we must avoid the outer bound
(the red locations in Figure (2)) where the horizontal
or vertical frequency is zero. When one frequency is
zero, the other has much influence and could deform
the watermarked image horizontally or vertically.
The inside bounds with the other frequency range
(High
and Low ) should be avoided for more
guarantee that the coefficient are in the middle as
much as possible (the yellow locations in Figure
(2)).
Coefficients must be on the same frequency level
(the dark or light green locations in Figure (2))
which has almost same frequency influence in the
two dimension transform.

d.

e.

Applying the classical embedding algorithm on the

three RGB channels instead of just one will exploit the
channels as other two copies for each watermark bit.
Later the three extracted values - one for each channelwill be used as inputs to a voter to increase the
probability of having correct extracted watermark bit
even if one value was changed during compressing,
processing or even noise attack.
For more safety, each watermark bit could be imbedded
in parallel in three DCT blocks located differently, so
the distribution of the splited blocks through the RGB
channels could be used as a secret key between the
authorized users.
The user can use a coded watermark with secret key for
more security.
III.a. EMBEDDING PROCESS

This new algorithm is based on modulating the relative size

of four 2D-DCT coefficients within one image block using
steps shown in Figure (4):
a. Split each channel data into several 8X8 (the best
standard size for 2D-DCT) blocks located at different
positions as in Figure (3).

Figure (3): An example of where the first bit value could be

inserted

b.

Perform the 2D-DCT transform on each three

corresponding blocks in parallel as preparation to
embed the watermarking bit into the middle frequency
bands of each block.
( , )=

( , ) cos

(2 + 1)
cos
2

(2 + 1)
2

where :
M ,N are the cover image dimensions.

is the input values of each block in position (x,y).

is the transform coefficients matrix with

positions (u,v)
x,y,u,v =0 .. 7

c.

d.

and
,

=0

d.

max

(4,1),

(3,2),

min

(4,1),

(3,2),

(1,4) +
(1,4)

=1

=0

e.

f.

1,

(2,3) > max

(4,1),

(3,2),

(1,4)

0,

(2,3) < min

(4,1),

(3,2),

(1,4)

Insert the three extracted values for one watermark bit,

to a voting process that gives the final value of that bit
(one if the majority is one and zero otherwise).This is
repeated until the whole hidden bits are obtained.
For getting higher security, a public/private key must be
used again after the extraction process to decode the
result value and forming the correct watermark. An
easy example to illustrate the idea is implementing the
and logical operation between the bit value and the
binary secret key bit by bit. Figure (5) shows an outline
of the extraction algorithm.
The inverse 2D-DCT is performed to map the
coefficients back into the space domain and reconstruct
the water marked image.

Perform the inverse 2D-DCT to reconstruct the

watermarked image (WI) including the watermark (W)
with no visible effect.
( , )=

f.

Each watermark bit could be obtained by performing all

the above in reverse order as in Figure(). Based on that, the
extraction process can be performed as following:
a. Divide the RGB channels into blocks at the same order
of the embedding.
b. Perform the 2D-DCT transform on each three blocks in
parallel.
c. Comparing the four 2D-DCT coefficient value located
as mentioned previously to extract three bit values using
the following algorithm:
=

As mentioned in the last section , the 2D-DCT four

coefficients are located in (4,1),(3,2),(2,3) and (1,4), but
the users have to agree up on which location will
express the watermark bit depending on the relative size
of the other three coefficients, e.g. coefficient in
location (2,3).
For any block Bi encodes a1 if Bi (2,3) is larger than
the other three coefficients, otherwise a 0 is encoded.
In other words to embed the corresponding watermark
bit bi , each block must be modified as follows, where K
is the strength factor :
(2,3) =

e.

=0

III.b. EXTRACTING PROCESS

( , ) cos

(2 + 1)
cos
2

(2 + 1)
2

The user can use a coded watermark bits before

embedding with secret key for more security.

Figure (5): The extraction flow chart

IV. THE PROPOSED TECHNIQUE EVALUATION

With this improvement technique the probability of
extracting a correct watermark bit will be increased without
degrading the original image even if the watermarked image
has been compressed or exposed to an attack such as noise.
Since the affected pixel from the watermarked image may
cause an error in one of three bit value, there are two other
values to forcethe voter deviate to the correct value. This
means that the probability of overcoming such attacks will
be doubled.

Figure (4): The embedding flow chart

When implementing the proposed technique acceptable

results was obtained and evaluated:

 Perceptually: where it is obviously to the human eye that

the extracted watermark has better quality than the
watermark extracted using the previous algorithms.
Numerically: using two performance evaluation measures
which are RMSE (Root-Mean-Square Error) (which
must as small as possible where 0 is the perfect value
when complete match) and correlation (which must be
as great as possible where 1 is the perfect value when
complete match) to illustrate the improvement extracted
watermark quality in construct to the original embedded
watermark and the watermarked image compared with
the original one.
The experimental results prove the strength of the
proposed algorithm that could be noticed in the following
points :
Efficient embedding and extracting the watermarks using
lower strength factor value (The perfect value chosen
experimentally) which provides less effecting on the
original image while it must be 5 at least for other
algorithms as shown in Table (1-2) and Figure(6,7).
Much robust against compressing because of using the
same JPEG compressing steps in the embedding stage
which is clear in Table(3) and Figure(8).
Acceptable robustness against attacks such as noise or
cropping because of using a voter that deviate the
extracted bit to the correct value and much immune to
compress with quality factor ranging up to C =30%
(ratio of still image data) as shown in appendix Figure.
Much secure due to the secret distribution of the 2D-DCT
blocks in where the watermark bits will be embedded
after coded with secret key and using three color
channels with secret positions.

Figure (6): Perceptual results of compression test with = 75%

Table (1): Numerical results of compression test with = 75%

Digimarking with = 5
The algorithm
Corr

RMSE

Corr

RMSE

LSB

0.9967

0.0039

0.7292

2D-DCT based with 2

coefficients
2D-DCT based with 3
coefficients

0.9965

0.1949

0.7048

0.9965

0.3401

0.5987

Table (2): Numerical results of digimarking with different 2D-DCT

based algorithms
Digimarking with = 1
2D-DCT based
algorithm
Corr
RMSE
Corr
RMSE

Figure (7): Perceptual results of digimarking with different 2DDCT based algorithms and K=1
Table (3): Numerical results of compression test with = 75%
Digimarking with

=1

2D-DCT based algorithm

Corr

RMSE

Corr

RMSE

3coefficients & 1channel

0.9995

0.8744

0.2519

3coefficients & 1channel

0.9884

0.0484

0.7160

3coefficients & 3channels

0.9988

0.8701

0.2577

3coefficients & 3channels

0.9873

0.3579

0.6003

4coefficients & 1channel

0.9955

0.97981

4coefficients & 1channel

0.9873

0.3695

0.6518

4coefficients & 3channels

0.9893

4coefficients & 3channels

0.9823

0.9430

0.6518

Figure (8): Perceptual results of compression test with

= 75%

To prove the fact that the performance of the proposed

algorithm is independent from the image nature and
properties, the proposed algorithm was applied on different
images selected randomly (large image database contains 60
BMP image files with uncompressed 24-bit format that have
been randomly selected from the World Wide Web).
Figure(9) shows some of the used images, and Figure(10)
shows the extracted watermarks with correlation factors

Figure (10): Extracted watermark from a set of watermarked

images

V. CONCLUSION
In this research we started by understanding the available
2D-DCT techniques to get the benefits and avoid the
disadvantages in a proposed technique expected to be much
efficient in digimarking and more robust against any applied
process especially compression or even a watermark
removal trial.

98% in average as recorded in the appendix Table(4).

To be accurate any improved results will be on the
expense of the total cost which will be increased because of:
Software Redundancy: Repeating the same embedding
and extracting algorithm on three channels instead of
only one requires adding voter unit and of course more
instructions which meaning longer execution time.
Hardware Redundancy : The proposed technique could
be implemented in hardware by using three processors
one for each channel data and a voter ,this will reduce
the execution time on the expense of hardware cost ,but
it still be less expensive since it is paid only one time .

Figure (9): A sample from the image database

REFERENCES
[1]. M. Kutter, F. Hartung, Introduction to Watermarking
Techniques in Information Techniques for Steganography and
Digital Watermarking, S.C. Katzenbeisser et al., Eds. Northwood,
MA: Artec House, pp 97-119, Dec. 1999
[2] G. Langelaar, I. Setyawan, R.L. Lagendijk, Watermarking Digital
Image and Video Data, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, Vol
17, pp 20-43, September 2000
[3] J.R. Hernandez, M.Amado, and F. Perez-Gonzalez, DCT-Domain
Watermarking Techniques for Still Images: Detector Performance
Analysis And a New Structure, IEEE Trans. Image Processing,
vol. 9, pp 55-68, Jan. 2000
[4] Zhao. J, Koch.E ,Embedding Robust Labels into Images for
Copyright Protection, in Proceedings of the International
Conference on Intellectual Property Rights for Information,
Knowledge
and
New
Techniques,Munchen,Wien:OldenbourgVerlag,pp.242-251, June,
1995.
[5] Zhao.J, Koch.E ,Towards Robust and Hidden Image Copyright
Labeling ,in IEEE Workshop on Nonlinear Signal and Image
Proccessing,pp.452-455,June.1995.

Appendix
The processing
description
No attack on the
watermarked
image
(256X256 pixels) from
which results a (32X32
pixels) watermark could
be extracted.

The watermarked image

after processing

The extracted
watermark

The
processing

The watermarked image

after processing

The extracted
watermark

JPEG
compress with
(75% quality
level)

Resizing
the
watermarked image to
(512X512 pixels) results
a watermark with the
same
resizing
rate
(64X64 pixels).

JPEG
compress with
(50% quality
level)

Cropping with
border size = 20 Pixel

JPEG
compress with
(40% quality
level)

Adding random noise

JPEG
compress with
(30% quality
level)

Figure (11): The proposed 2D-DCT based algorithm with

= 1 to extract a watermark from a processed watermarked image

01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15

0.9819
0.9761
0.9946
0.9910
0.9928
0.9885
0.9880
0.9871
0.9783
0.9869
0.9754
0.9904
0.9907
0.9907
0.9852

16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30

0.9901
0.9946
0.9598
0.9900
0.9927
0.9793
0.9856
0.9888
0.9839
0.9901
0.9934
0.9643
0.9825
0.9827
0.9841

Correlation
between
extracted
watermark
and the
original
0.9641
0.9621
0.9939
0.8763
0.9818
0.9980
0.9980
1
1
0.9959
1
1
1
1
0.9878

31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45

Correlation
between
watermarked
image and
the original
0.9760
0.9940
0.9837
0.9903
0.9768
0.9706
0.9825
0.9958
0.9867
0.9809
0.9824
0.9901
0.9921
0.9945
0.9950

Correlation
between
extracted
watermark
and the
original
0.9898
1
0.9919
1
0.9838
1
0.9583
0.9878
0.9818
0.9858
0.9878
1
0.9980
0.9798
1

Image

Correlation
between
watermarked
image and
the original

Image

Correlation
between
extracted
watermark
and the
original
1
0.9959
1
0.9563
1
0.9959
0.8609
0.9468
1
0.9699
0.9878
1
0.9898
1
0.9919

Image

Image

Table (4): The correlation values of the watermarked images and the extracted watermarks
Correlation
between
watermarked
image and
the original

46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60

Correlation
between
watermarked
image and
the original
0.9823
0.9957
0.9883
0.9956
0.9933
0.9793
0.9633
0.9984
0.9888
0.9819
0.9929
0.9924
0.9576
0.9786
0.9740

Correlation
between
extracted
watermark
and the
original
1
1
1
0.9898
1
1
1
0.9980
0.9939
1
1
0.9980
1
0.9919
0.9680