Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Digimarc Digital Image Watermarking Guide
Digimarc Digital Image Watermarking Guide
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction to digital watermarking 2
11
Case studies
17
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
market, and can even help you capture secondary revenue by bringing interested buyers to your doorstep.
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
These Digimarc-aware applications are capable not only of embedding digital watermarks, but also of reading and detecting digital watermarks already embedded in digital images. When an image is opened within one of these applications, the plug-ins' auto-detection software quickly scans the image for the presence of a digital watermark. If a digital watermark is present, the application displays a copyright symbol () in the title bar of the image window, providing an instant, visual cue that copyright and ownership information are available by reading the Digimarc digital watermark. The passive detection and proactive notification are key features of Digimarc's copyright communication system. In addition to the embedder and reader plug-ins within many image editing applications, Digimarc also offers its own stand-alone reader product for detecting digital watermarks within images on your desktop or on the web. This free reader download enables users to detect digitally watermarked images directly from Internet Explorer or Windows Explorer. If a digital watermark is present, the image displays a D symbol in the lower right corner of the image. By simply clicking a "Image Info" button, the user viewing an image can link directly to the Digimarc registry, to obtain complete contact details for the image owner or distributor. In addition to the plug-ins, Digimarc offers other batching and server side applications for digitally watermarking images. These applications provide the same digital watermarking capabilities for high volume watermarking and can be integrated into other software applications.
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
the user has the option of linking directly to the registry, where a contact profile or web site for the creator or distributor of the image is immediately available.
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
Through the information found in the digital watermark, anyone with a Digimarc "reader" (available in the stand-alone free softwware Reader as well as in the plug-ins) can obtain complete contact details about an image's creator and/or its distributor, making it simple to license the image, license another one like it, or commission new work.
Note: Not all of Digimarc's products support all of these image attributes. Refer to the User's Guide for your individual product for specific information.
File formats
A Digimarc watermark can reside in any file format supported by a Digimarc-enabled image editing application. For example, TIFF, PICT, JPEG, GIF, PNG, PSD and BMP images can all contain a digital watermark. Because a digital watermark is woven into and carried by the pixels that make up an image, it survives even when the image is converted from one file format to another.
Note: Not all of Digimarc's products support all of these file formats. Refer to the User's Guide of your product for specific information.
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
Color space
A digital watermark is placed in the luminance channel of an image, so it is color-space independent. A digital watermark can be placed in RGB, CMYK, LAB or grayscale images, and will survive when an image is converted from one color space to another. Note: The RGB, CMYK, LAB and grayscale color spaces are not supported by all image editing applications, so refer to the User's Guide of your application to see what color spaces it supports. In some image editing applications, no filters are available when working with indexedcolor images (such as the GIF format); this will prevent you from using the plug-ins filter to embed a digital watermark in such an image. The solution is simple, however: just convert the image to RGB, apply the digital watermark, and then convert back to indexed color using an adaptive palette.
Image variations/randomness
Digimarc digital watermarks are most effective and least perceptible when applied to images that are not composed, mostly or entirely, of a single flat color. Rather, images should contain some degree of variation or randomness. Digimarc uses a patented technique called perceptual adaptation when embedding digital watermarks as a means to make digital watermarks as imperceptible to viewers as possible. This is simply a technical way of saying that when embedding a digital watermark, the software identifies areas of the image that are highly detailed or very flat, and adjusts the intensity of the digital watermark accordingly. In flat areas the digital watermark intensity is decreased, while in detailed regions the intensity is increased. If an image is composed mostly of flat areas, it may be difficult to conceal the digital watermark.
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
Digimarc ID. A unique number that identifies you when you register with Digimarc as an image creator. This unique ID is linked to the creator's contact profile. PIN. A Personal Identification Number provided to you by Digimarc for use in validating your Digimarc ID when you submit it. Copyright Year. A single year or two years; must be between 1922 and the current year, or Image or Transaction ID. A unique number that you assign to identify the image or transaction (range is 1-16,777,215). This image is for restricted use only. When selected, indicates that the image is copyrighted and subject to restricted use. This image is copyrighted. When selected, indicates that the image's creator and/or distributor has specified that the image should not be copied without permission. This image contains Adult Content. When selected, indicates that the image contains Adult Content.
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
intensity level yourself to achieve the desired balance between watermark robustness and visibility in your digital watermarking projects. The setting you select will depend on the intended use of the image and on the goals you've set for your digital watermarks. For example, it may be quite acceptable to use a higher watermark strength setting with JPEG images posted on a web site. The higher durability helps to assure the persistence of the digital watermark, and the increased visibility will often not be noticeable with medium-resolution JPEG images. Digimarc recommends that you try various digital watermark intensity settings as part of your testing process to see which setting works best for the majority of your images. The goal is to find the balance between visibility and durability that best serves your image and provides the persistent identity that will protect it.
Image compression
In general, a Digimarc digital watermark will survive image compression, but the survival is dependent on several factors. Lossless compression, such as Compact Pro, LZW, StuffIt and the .ZIP format, does not affect the survival of a digital watermark at all, because no image data is sacrificed to create the compressed version. On the other hand, because lossy compression methods such as JPEG actually remove some image data in order to decrease file size, they can have varying effects on digital watermark survival. The following factors will influence the impact that lossy compression has on digital watermark survival: Level of image compression: Lossy compression degrades the image to some extent, depending upon the quality setting chosen when saving in compressed format; most digital watermarks will survive as long as a moderate level of compression is used (see below for more detail). Visibility/durability setting used when embedding a digital watermark: The higher the intensity setting, the better the chances the digital watermark will survive compression. Again, a higher-intensity digital watermark provides more data-tosurvive compression. Since the visual quality of compressed images is often somewhat compromised anyway, generally a higher watermark intensity setting yields quite acceptable results. Image size: The greater the number of pixels in the image, the more the digital watermark can be repeated throughout it; the recommended minimum size for an image that will be compressed is 256 x 256 pixels. The larger the image, the better the digital watermark will survive compression. Randomness of image data: As discussed in the earlier section "Image variations/randomness," the more randomness and/or color variation in an image, the better; a flat color space with little gradation may not survive well, while an image with more detail and contrast will fare better. Since a digital watermark is applied more strongly within areas of high contrast or variation, an image that contains more contrast and/or variation than others will contain more digital watermark data and thus stand a better chance of surviving compression. Note that vector images, line art or text that are converted to a bitmap and then digitally watermarked may not survive compression well due to a relative lack of randomness.
Unfortunately, images vary so widely in their detail, randomness and other qualities that it is impossible to provide universal guidelines for applying compression to all images. A digital watermark in one image may survive a compression ratio of 20:1, while another may not survive anything above 10:1. In addition, image editing applications vary
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
widely in how they apply compression as well as how they present the available compression options to the user. For example, one application may offer a compression scale of "Low," "Medium," "High" and "Maximum" image quality, while another may provide a numerical scale of 0 through 255. As a result of these inconsistencies, it is difficult to provide specific recommendations for which compression settings you should use with your watermarked images; however, a setting that yields approximately a 10:1 reduction in file size can be considered moderate, and should ensure watermark survival in most images. If you are using Adobe Photoshop for image editing and embedding digital watermarks, Digimarc generally recommends using Level 4 (Medium Image Quality) or higher when compressing images. If you are using an image editing tool other than Photoshop, you will probably want to stay within the same general range.
Note: Besides JPEG, there are new forms of lossy compression such as Wavelet and Fractal. Because these compression formats are not yet as standardized as JPEG, Digimarc has not done extensive testing of their impact on watermark survival as of this writing. If you want to use either approach, we recommend that you experiment thoroughly and be sure to test your images for watermark readability before distributing them.
As you work with compressed images and test the readability of digital watermarks embedded in those images, you may want to experiment with the interaction between the visibility/durability setting for digital watermarking and the level of image compression. Depending on the content of your image (detail, color palette, etc.), these settings will have varying impacts on the digital watermark's survivability.
Resampling images
In some situations, you may wish to have multiple copies of an image at different resolutions. For example, one may want two of the same image at different resolutions. One may want a 100 DPI version for Web use and a 300 DPI version. To accomplish this, you resample the image, changing its resolution in your image-editing application after using the "Save a copy..." or similar command. When you are working with an image that you will be resampling in multiple resolutions, always resample before embedding a digital watermark. This will mean
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
conducting more digital watermarking operations than if you embedded only once prior to resampling, but your digital watermarks will be much more durable using this approach.
DPI settings
When digitally watermarking an image for use on the Internet resample the image to the proper DPI setting for this medium (either 72 or 100 DPI) before you embed the digital watermark. Correctly matching the digital watermark's DPI setting to the image's final resolution will ensure the survival of your embedded information.
UCR/GCR settings
Typical UCR (Under Color Removal) settings of 280, 300 or 320 do not affect digital watermark survival; typical GCR (Gray Component Replacement) settings also do not affect watermark survival.
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
Unsharp Mask
The recommendations for applying the Unsharp Mask filter to an image differ depending on whether the image is intended to be used for digital or printed output. When preparing an image for Internet use or other digital output, if an Unsharp Mask filter is necessary, always apply it before embedding your digital watermark. Because Unsharp Mask increases the apparent level of detail in an image, and a digital watermark is embedded most intensely in the detailed areas, the Unsharp Mask process enhances the areas where a digital watermark is most intense.
Scaling
A digital watermark will generally survive scaling, but Digimarc recommends staying within a range of .6X to 2X to preserve the digital watermark.
Cropping
Because the digital watermark is repeated throughout the image, removing portions of the image by cropping will generally not affect the watermark, provided that the final image exceeds the minimum size discussed above. If the image is cropped to less than 256 x 256 pixels, the watermark may not survive.
Rotation
Unlike other systems that embed copyright information in images, a Digimarc watermark remains intact when the image is rotated by any number of degrees. The rotation can be as small as 1 or 2 degrees, which can often occur when an image is scanned, or as large as the most extreme arbitrary rotation, with no effect on watermark survival.
Effects filters
The digital watermark survives most effects filters, but the general rule is that the survival of the digital watermark is linked to the visual quality of the image. If an effects filter is applied at an extreme setting such that the quality of the image is compromised (particularly distortion-type effects such as Blur, Twirl and Morph), then the digital watermark may no longer be readable from the image.
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
If you create a montage using images created by others, bear in mind that your image editing application might alert you to copyright and authorship information stored in those images via digital watermarks. You should consider this information carefully when evaluating whether you should use such images in your work, or whether you should contact the copyright holder(s) before using them. Remember that you cannot embed a watermark in an image that already contains one. Attempting to do so will result in an error message.
CASE STUDIES
This section presents three fictional "case studies" to help demonstrate how you might apply some of the techniques and concepts explained in this Guide.
ISSUES TO CONSIDER
Resizing watermarked images can adversely affect digital watermark durability. The two smallest images are below the recommended 256 x 256 pixels for compressed images.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Resize the original image before embedding a digital watermark. Create the four desired sizes from the original, and save the resized images as separate files. Since the Digimarc-recommended minimum size for watermarked images that will be compressed is 256 x 256 pixels, any digital watermark embedded in the two smallest sizes most likely will not survive after the images have been JPEG-compressed. The digital watermark in the smallest image will certainly not survive. \
PROCESS
6. Working from the original image, resize it to the four desired sizes and save those versions as separate files. 7. Open the two largest images for digital watermarking, and perhaps the 150 x 110 pixel image. Do not watermark the smallest image, since it is too small for effective watermarking and probably has little commercial value anyway
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
due to its size. 8. Embed the digital watermarks at intensity level 2 and read the watermark to test it. 9. Compress the digitally watermarked images: Set compression at a level that favors image quality over image size. If you are using Adobe Photoshop, a compression level or 4 (medium image quality) or greater is recommended. 10. After saving the images in compressed format, close the files and then reopen them. Choose "Read Watermark" from the Filters menu.
ISSUES TO CONSIDER
Digitally watermarking an image that has already been saved in the JPEGcompressed format can result in image quality degradation-you are effectively compressing the image twice. Image size should not be an issue, as the 330 x 280 pixel size is over the 256 x 256 minimum. For best results and the most durable watermark, go back and apply the digital watermark to the original, uncompressed image files (TIFF format, for example), then compress the images. If it is not possible to work with the original images, the JPEG-format images can be watermarked-but this will likely result in less durable digital watermarks and decreased image quality.
2. After watermarking, save the images in JPEG format again. Remember to favor image quality over file size when choosing a JPEG compression level. You are effectively compressing the images twice, which may degrade image quality at higher compression levels. 3. After saving the images in compressed format, choose "Read Watermark" from the Filters menu. 4. Once you are satisfied with both the watermark strength and the visual quality of the images, post them on the Web site.
2006 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com