Filters Ranking for DWT-Domain Robust Digital Watermarking

In recent years a number of wavelet-based watermarking schemes have been proposed and exhibited improved qualities. The choice of a wavelet filter bank for a digital watermarking scheme can have a significant influence on the scheme’s performance in terms of image quality and robustness. We present the results of experiments conducted using two different embedding algorithms (one blind and one nonblind) using a number of popular filter banks. The aim is to find filters that exhibit optimal performance with respect to specified requirements. The results demonstrate that the subband depth of embedding has the most significant influence on the filter bank choice. The kind of attack and the kind of embedding are also important, while marking intensity and compression ratio seem to affect the performance to a less extent. Additionally we show that out of the two embedding methods the quantization-based blind one leads to better overall results than the popular, nonblind one.