Image Watermarking Scheme Based on Scale-Invariant Feature Transform

Abstract

In this paper, a robust watermarking scheme is proposed that uses the scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) algorithm in the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) domain. First, the SIFT feature areas are extracted from the original image. Then, one level DWT is applied on the selected SIFT feature areas. The watermark is embedded by modifying the fractional portion of the horizontal or vertical, high-frequency DWT coefficients. In the watermark extracting phase, the embedded watermark can be directly extracted from the watermarked image without requiring the original cover image. The experimental results showed that the proposed scheme obtains the robustness to both signal processing and geometric attacks. Also, the proposed scheme is superior to some previous schemes in terms of watermark robustness and the visual quality of the watermarked image.