Color image watermarking using quaternion Fourier transform

The paper presents a digital color image watermarking scheme using a hypercomplex numbers representation and the quaternion Fourier transform (QFT). Previous color image watermarking methods are first presented and the quaternion representation is then described. In this framework, RGB pixel values are associated with a unique quaternion number having three imaginary parts. The QFT is presented; this transform depends on an arbitrary unit pure quaternion, μ. The value of μ is selected to provide embedding spaces having robustness and/or perceptual properties. In our approach, μ is a function of the mean color value of a block and a perceptual component. A watermarking scheme based on the QFT and the quantization index modulation scheme is then presented. This scheme is evaluated for different color image filtering processes (JPEG, blur). The fact that perceptive QFT embedding can offer robustness to luminance filtering techniques is outlined.