Hybrid Digital Image Watermarking Using Singular Value Decomposition of the Cover Image and Discrete Wavelet Transform of the Watermark

Nidaa Abbas

doi:10.71229/ksn9hq65

Authors

Nidaa H. Abbas Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad, Iraq

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.71229/ksn9hq65

Keywords:

Digital watermarking, , Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), , Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT),, Imperceptibility, , Robustness,, PSNR, , SSIM,, Normalized Correlation.

Abstract

This paper proposes a hybrid digital image watermarking scheme that integrates Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) applied to the cover image with a Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) preprocessing stage applied to the watermark. The cover image is factorized via SVD into left and right orthogonal matrices and a diagonal singular value matrix, while the watermark is decomposed using the Haar wavelet into four frequency subbands. The low-frequency approximation subband of the watermark is then embedded additively and exclusively into the K most dominant diagonal elements of the singular value matrix, ensuring that the most perceptually significant singular values serve as the primary carriers of the embedded watermark, while the remaining singular values retain their original magnitudes. The watermarked image is subsequently synthesized through inverse SVD reconstruction and the concealed watermark is retrieved via a semi-blind extraction process that exploits the stored orthogonal SVD matrices and the DWT details subbands as a compact secret key. Comprehensive experimental evaluations performed in MATLAB using widely adopted grayscale benchmark images verify that the proposed algorithm attains satisfactory imperceptibility and resilience against a diverse set of signal processing distortions, encompassing JPEG compression, additive noise, spatial filtering and intensity transformations. Furthermore, quantitative comparisons with the existing state- of- the- art watermarking schemes substantiate that the proposed approach successfully reconciles the competing demands of imperceptibility and robustness, establishing its viability as an effective solution for digital image copyright protection and ownership verification.

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