Error-free authentication watermarking based on prediction-error-expansion reversible technique

Watermarking technology is an efficient method to protect multimedia content. In this paper, an error-free authentication watermarking is proposed based on prediction-error-expansion reversible technique. A binary image is used as an authentication watermark, and embedded in the prediction errors block-wise. A location map is designed and encoded to promise accurate extraction and recovery. A retesting strategy utilizing the parity detection activates the capacity of the ambiguous pixels. In the authentication and recovery period, a watermarked image can be identified as authentic or tampered. If an image is authentic, it can be recovered without errors. The embedded information can be extracted correctly. If an image is a tampered one, the tampered positions can be labeled. The experimental results show the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed method.