🖼️ Fragile Watermarking Using LSB for Tamper Detection and Authentication

This project demonstrates a fragile digital image watermarking method based on the Least Significant Bit (LSB) technique. In this method, a binary watermark is embedded into the LSBs of a grayscale cover image, allowing basic tamper detection and image authentication.

Unlike robust or reversible watermarking methods, this technique is fragile — meaning that even a small modification in the watermarked image can damage or destroy the embedded watermark. This makes it suitable for integrity verification rather than recovery or data hiding.

---

📌 Description

The watermark is embedded into a grayscale version of the cover image using LSB modification. This method is:

• ❗ Fragile: Any modification/tampering breaks the watermark.
• 🧠 Simple and educational: Ideal for understanding the basics of image watermarking.

---

📂 Project Structure

• Main.m: The main script that runs the watermark embedding and extraction process.
• embedWatermark(): Embeds binary watermark bits into the LSBs of the cover image.
• extractWatermark(): Extracts the watermark from the watermarked image.
• Various attack simulations (optional, commented).

---

🖼️ Example Images

• Cover Image: baboon.tiff
• Watermark Image: watermark.jpg
  (Both located in TestImages/ folder)

---

🧪 How It Works

1. Read and preprocess the cover and watermark images.
2. Embed the binary watermark into the LSB of the cover image.
3. Measure imperceptibility using PSNR and MSE.
4. (Optional) Simulate attacks like Gaussian noise, JPEG compression, rotation, etc.
5. Extract the watermark from the possibly attacked image.
6. Compare the original and extracted watermark using PSNR/MSE.

---

📄 Related Publications

If you're interested in the theoretical foundations and extended DWT-based version of this method, check out the following papers:

• 🎓 Conference Paper
  A Novel Reversible Fragile Watermarking in DWT Domain for Tamper Localization and Digital Image Authentication
  IEEE Xplore

• 📝 Journal Article
  A Novel Reversible Fragile Watermarking Method in DWT Domain for Tamper Localization and Digital Image Authentication
  Biomedical Signal Processing and Control

• 📘 Book Chapter
  A QR Code-Based Robust Color Image Watermarking Technique In: 4th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Applied Mathematics in Engineering Springer

---

🧠 Blog

You can also read about the concept, algorithms, and implementation in more detail on my blog page.

---

🚀 Getting Started

Make sure the following files/folders exist:

• TestImages/baboon.tiff (Cover Image)
• TestImages/watermark.jpg (Watermark Image)

Then simply run:

Main