A Spatial and Frequency Domain Analysis of the Effect of Removal Attacks on Digital Image Watermarks

Digital image watermarking is one of the most widely used techniques for protection of ownership rights of digital images. Its commercial applications range from copyright protection to digital rights management. However, although there have been numerous new proposed digital image watermarking techniques, most are not sufficiently robust against watermark attacks. With the main objective of finding a novel solution to the robustness challenge in digital image watermarking, this paper presents the results of experiments and analysis on the effect of different watermark attacks. The analysis was carried out using two image analysis tools namely Image Histogram and Fourier Spectrum in both spatial and frequency domain respectively. The results identified some common similarities between different types of watermark attack, a property which could be exploited when designing a new solution for a more robust digital image watermarking technique.