TAMPER-TRACE: A Dual Watermarking Framework for Copyright Protection and Tamper Localization

  • Unique Paper ID: 179241
  • PageNo: 6444-6457
  • Abstract:
  • Tamper-Trace: A Dual Watermarking Framework for Tamper Detection and Copyright Protection. In today's digital era, the swift progress of image editing software has made it easier than ever to alter visual content. While such tools enhance creativity and offer flexibility, they also threaten the authenticity and copyright security of digital media. Detecting unauthorized changes, forgeries, and subtle manipulations has become increasingly challenging using traditional watermarking techniques. Most existing methods mainly focus on copyright validation or tracking images but often miss minor or invisible alterations. Tamper-Trace introduces an innovative approach by integrating both robust and fragile watermarks. The robust watermark withstands common image processing actions like compression, resizing, and minor filtering, ensuring the ownership information remains intact. Conversely, the fragile watermark is extremely sensitive and becomes disrupted by even the slightest unauthorized change. This dual system allows precise identification of tampered areas, regardless of the type of editing applied. The foundation of Tamper-Trace lies in image-into-image steganography, embedding both watermarks invisibly without compromising the image's visual quality. If any modifications are made, the fragile watermark is disturbed, enabling efficient detection and localization of altered regions. Unlike AI-based methods that depend on large-scale training data and complex models, Tamper-Trace is lightweight, easy to interpret, and adaptable, making it ideal for applications such as digital journalism, surveillance, legal documentation, and social media verification. Extensive testing has shown that Tamper-Trace achieves high accuracy in tamper detection while remaining resilient to standard editing processes. By merging copyright protection with tamper detection, Tamper-Trace offers an effective, balanced solution for maintaining the integrity of digital images in a world increasingly affected by content manipulation.

Copyright & License

Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

BibTeX

@article{179241,
        author = {A.Muthu Harini and B.Vishnu Priya and J.Hemalatha and S.Rajeswari},
        title = {TAMPER-TRACE: A Dual Watermarking Framework for Copyright Protection and Tamper Localization},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {11},
        number = {12},
        pages = {6444-6457},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=179241},
        abstract = {Tamper-Trace: A Dual Watermarking Framework for Tamper Detection and Copyright Protection. In today's digital era, the swift progress of image editing software has made it easier than ever to alter visual content. While such tools enhance creativity and offer flexibility, they also threaten the authenticity and copyright security of digital media. Detecting unauthorized changes, forgeries, and subtle manipulations has become increasingly challenging using traditional watermarking techniques. Most existing methods mainly focus on copyright validation or tracking images but often miss minor or invisible alterations. Tamper-Trace introduces an innovative approach by integrating both robust and fragile watermarks. The robust watermark withstands common image processing actions like compression, resizing, and minor filtering, ensuring the ownership information remains intact. Conversely, the fragile watermark is extremely sensitive and becomes disrupted by even the slightest unauthorized change. This dual system allows precise identification of tampered areas,	regardless of the type of editing applied. The foundation of Tamper-Trace lies in image-into-image steganography, embedding both watermarks invisibly without compromising the image's visual quality. If any modifications are made, the fragile watermark is disturbed, enabling efficient detection and localization of altered regions. Unlike AI-based methods that depend on large-scale training data and complex models, Tamper-Trace is lightweight, easy to interpret, and adaptable, making it ideal for applications such as digital journalism, surveillance, legal documentation, and social media verification. Extensive testing has shown that Tamper-Trace achieves high accuracy in tamper detection while remaining resilient to standard editing processes. By merging copyright protection with tamper detection, Tamper-Trace offers an effective, balanced solution for maintaining the integrity of digital images in a world increasingly affected by content manipulation.},
        keywords = {Tamper Localization, Copyright Protection, Dual Watermarking, Steganography, Image Forensics, Content Integrity.},
        month = {May},
        }

Cite This Article

Harini, A., & Priya, B., & J.Hemalatha, , & S.Rajeswari, (2025). TAMPER-TRACE: A Dual Watermarking Framework for Copyright Protection and Tamper Localization. International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology (IJIRT), 11(12), 6444–6457.

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