• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.305-322
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• 2005

Watermarking is a widely employed method tn protecting copyright of a digital image, the owner's unique image is embedded into the original image. Strengthened level of watermark insertion would help enhance its resilience in the process of extraction even from various distortions of transformation on the image size or resolution. However, its level, at the same time, should be moderated enough not to reach human visibility. Finding a balance between these two is crucial in watermarking. For the algorithm for watermarking, the predefined strength of a watermark, computed from the physical difference between the original and embedded images, is applied to all images uniformal. The mean brightness or contrast of the surrounding images, other than the absolute brightness of an object, could affect human sensitivity for object detection. In the present study, we examined whether the detectability for watermark noise might be attired by image statistics: mean brightness and contrast of the image. As the first step to examine their effect, we made rune fundamental images with varied brightness and control of the original image. For each fundamental image, detectability for watermark noise was measured. The results showed that the strength ot watermark node for detection increased as tile brightness and contrast of the fundamental image were increased. We have fitted the data to a regression line which can be used to estimate the strength of watermark of a given image with a certain brightness and contrast. Although we need to take other required factors into consideration in directly applying this formula to actual watermarking algorithm, an adaptive watermarking algorithm could be built on this formula with image statistics, such as brightness and contrast.