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WATERMARKING GUIDE
DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Case studies 17
© 2005 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 2
Digimarc solutions let you add an extra layer of protection to your digital images.
© 2005 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 3
market, and can even help you capture secondary revenue by bringing interested buyers
to your doorstep.
© 2005 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 4
Overall, digital watermarking provides creators and distributors of images three main
benefits:
• Protect your valuable images by communicating your copyright
• Track down uses of your images on the Web
• Generate incremental revenue by embedding an ad in every image
© 2005 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 5
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.
© 2005 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 6
The core of Digimarc MarcSpider technology is a search engine that crawls through
publicly accessible areas of the Internet looking for digitally watermarked images. It
scans hundreds of millions of pieces of information, locating Digimarc-watermarked
images and reporting back to their owners where and when they were found.
o This Image is for Restricted Use Only -If "Yes" or "On," indicates that the
image is not freely distributable and that licensing terms apply.
o This image is copyrighted.-If "Yes" or "On," instructs the person viewing the
image that it should not be reproduced in any form without contacting the
creator or distributor.
o This image contains Adult Content.-If "Yes" or "On," indicates that the image
contains subject matter that is suitable for adults only; helpful in preventing
minors from viewing unsuitable content in online applications.
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,
© 2005 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 7
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.
© 2005 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 8
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 indexed-
color 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.
© 2005 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 9
© 2005 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 10
• 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.
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DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 11
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,
© 2005 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 12
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-to-
survive 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
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
© 2005 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 13
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
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.
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DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 14
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.
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.
© 2005 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 15
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.
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DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 16
entire image. To avoid this problem, you must flatten the image (combine all of the
desired layers into a single image) before embedding the watermark. To flatten the
image in Adobe Photoshop, for example, choose "Flatten Image" from the pop-up menu
on the Layers palette. In some situations, you may want to create a watermarked version
of the current image but save its layered version for later use; most applications include
a "Save As..." or "Save a Copy..." command on the File menu for this purpose. After
saving a separate copy of the file, you can open the copy, flatten the image, and apply
your watermark.
If you create a montage consisting only of images that you created, you can opt to embed
a digital watermark into each of those images prior to adding them to the montage; or
you can wait and digitally watermark the entire montage when it is complete. When a
user views your montage, he/she can check for watermarks by selecting individual
images within the montage using the marquee or lasso tool and choosing the "Read
Watermark" command. If you use this approach, be sure that the individual images are
no smaller than the minimum 256 x 256 pixels.
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
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DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 17
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
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.
© 2005 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 18
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 JPEG-
compressed 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.
© 2005 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com
DIGIMARC DIGITAL IMAGE WATERMARKING GUIDE 19
© 2005 Digimarc Corporation 9405 SW Gemini Drive Beaverton, OR 97008 T +1.503.469.4800 F +1.503.469.4777 www.digimarc.com