HDR Image Watermarking based on Bracketing Decomposition

Abstract

The present paper proposes a novel watermarking scheme specifically designed for high dynamic range (HDR) images. The employed embedding strategy is based on a decomposition of the original HDR representation into multiple low dynamic range (LDR) images by means of a bracketing process. After having inserted the selected watermark into each LDR component, the final output is generated by combining the available contributions into a single HDR object. By exploiting some of the well studied properties of digital watermarking for standard LDR images, our approach is able to generate a watermarked HDR image visually equivalent to the original one, while allowing to detect the embedded information in both the marked HDR image and in its LDR counterpart, obtained through tone-mapping operators or by extracting a specific luminance range of interest from it. Several results obtained from an extensive set of experimental tests are reported to testify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

@InProceedings\{SMCB13,
  author       = "Solachidis, Vassilios  and Maiorana, Emanuele and Campisi, Patrizio and Banterle, Francesco",
  title        = "HDR Image Watermarking based on Bracketing Decomposition",
  booktitle    = "IEEE International Conference on Digital Signal Processing (18th DSP 2013)",
  pages        = "1--6",
  month        = "July",
  year         = "2013",
  publisher    = "IEEE",
  organization = "IEEE",
  keywords     = "High dynamic range (HDR) imaging; tonemapping operators (TMOs); watermarking; data hiding.",
  url          = "http://vcg-legacy.isti.cnr.it/Publications/2013/SMCB13"
}