Quantum color image watermarking based on Arnold transformation and LSB steganography

Abstract

In this paper, a quantum color image watermarking scheme is proposed through twice-scrambling of Arnold transformations and steganography of least significant bit (LSB). Both carrier image and watermark images are represented by the novel quantum representation of color digital images model (NCQI). The image sizes for carrier and watermark are assumed to be [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], respectively. At first, the watermark is scrambled into a disordered form through image preprocessing technique of exchanging the image pixel position and altering the color information based on Arnold transforms, simultaneously. Then, the scrambled watermark with [Formula: see text] image size and 24-qubit grayscale is further expanded to an image with size [Formula: see text] and 6-qubit grayscale using the nearest-neighbor interpolation method. Finally, the scrambled and expanded watermark is embedded into the carrier by steganography of LSB scheme, and a key image with [Formula: see text] size and 3-qubit information is generated at the meantime, which only can use the key image to retrieve the original watermark. The extraction of watermark is the reverse process of embedding, which is achieved by applying a sequence of operations in the reverse order. Simulation-based experimental results involving different carrier and watermark images (i.e. conventional or non-quantum) are simulated based on the classical computer’s MATLAB 2014b software, which illustrates that the present method has a good performance in terms of three items: visual quality, robustness and steganography capacity.

A Novel Dual Image Watermarking Technique Using Homomorphic Transform and DWT

“…Therefore scrambling of image are performed using AT. Scrambling is performed for fixed number of iterations whereas after applying inverse AT original image is recovered back [48][49][50]. Mathematically AT is formulated as:…”

Steganography of Quantum Color Images Based on Blocking and Gray Level Difference

“…The Gray code was used in the embedding process, and the embedding capacity was low. Based on Arnold transformation and LSB steganography, Zhou et al [18] brought forward a quantum steganography algorithm for color images, and such an algorithm can be applied to copyright protection of quantum images. Based on quantum walks, a new technique for image steganography was designed [19].…”

An anti-aliasing filtering of quantum images in spatial domain using a pyramid structure

“…Various quantum image representation models have been proposed, including qubit lattice, [11] entangled images, [12] real ket, [13] flexible representation of quantum images, [14] new quantum-enhanced representation (NEQR), [15] quantum image representation of logarithmic polar images, [16] and an improved novel quantum color image representation model (INCQI). [17] Based on these representation models, numerous quantum image processing algorithms have emerged, covering areas such as quantum grayscale and color image scaling, [18][19][20][21] quantum image feature extraction, [22,23] quantum image transformation, [24][25][26] quantum image matching, [27][28][29] quantum image compression, [30] quantum image segmentation, [30,31] quantum image watermarking, [32][33][34][35][36][37] and quantum image encryption. [38][39][40] In image processing, aliasing is a common phenomenon occurring when an image is sampled or scaled, resulting in high-frequency information being erroneously represented as low-frequency information, leading to unnatural artifacts or distortions.…”