Hybrid watermarking algorithm based on SVD and lifting wavelet transform for ownership verification

In this paper, we propose a hybrid robust digital watermarking algorithm based on singular value decomposition (SVD) and lifting wavelet transform (LWT). In contrast to other watermarking algorithms based on wavelet transforms which exploit the human visual system (HVS), proposed method does not require to use HVS characteristics. After decomposing the cover image into a two-level lifting wavelet transform, we compute the inverse LWT of a selected subband (SB). The watermark embedding procedure is done by modifying singular values. Experimental results demonstrate that this method is robust against several attacks such as: noise addition, histogram equalization, gamma correction, JPEG compression, cropping, rotation and randomly line and column removal.