Robust Reversible Image Watermarking based on Independent Embedding Domain and Pixel Value Ordering
Ledya Novamizanti, Andriyan Bayu Suksmono, Donny Danudirdjo, Gelar Budiman · 2023
Robust reversible watermarking (RRW) schemes play a critical role in vulnerable applications, such as medical imaging, military and remote sensing, which require high fidelity and robustness. Furthermore, an RRW is challenging because it can solve watermark embedding and extraction in lossless and lossy environments. A two-stage RRW approach based on independent embedding domain (IED) has been presented by Wang et al. This paper proposes an RRW scheme through IED with a reversible watermarking method based on pixel value ordering (PVO). In contrast to Wang et al.'s scheme, which relies on threshold-based histogram shifting in reversible phase, our proposed method designs and modifies only the highest and lowest values in a block of pixels. Reversibility is guaranteed as it keeps the PVO of each block unchanged during embedding, thereby reducing distortion in the embedded content. The RRW approach based on IED and PVO results improved imperceptibility over the current state-of-the-art technique.