A novel technique for robust image watermarking in the DCT domain

In this paper, we present a novel algorithm for embedding a watermark into a still host image in the DCT domain. Unlike the traditional techniques, we embed a binary image as a watermark into the dc components of the DCT coefficients of 8/spl times/8 blocks. In the proposed algorithm, we incorporate the feature of texture masking and luminance masking of the human visual system into watermarking. The algorithm recovers the watermark without any reference to the original image. Experimental results demonstrate that the visible watermarks embedded with the proposed algorithm are robust to various attacks.