Multiple color-image fusion and watermarking based on optical interference and wavelet transform

A novel multiple color-image fusion and watermarking using optical interference and wavelet transform is proposed. In this method, each secret color image is encoded into three phase-only masks (POMs). One POM is constructed as user identity key and the other two POMs are generated as user identity key modulated by corresponding secret color image in gyrator transform domain without using any time-consuming iterative computations or post-processing of the POMs to remove inherent silhouette problem. The R, G, and B channels of different user identity keys POM are then individually multiplied to get three multiplex POMs, which are exploited as encrypted images. Similarly the R, G, and B channels of other two POMs are independently multiplied to obtain two sets of three multiplex POMs. The encrypted images are fused with gray-level cover image to produce the final encrypted image as watermarked image. The secret color images are shielded by encrypted images (which have no information about secret images) as well as cover image (which reveals no information about encrypted images). These two remarkable features of the proposed system drastically reduce the probability of the encrypted images to be searched and attacked. Each individual user has an identity key and two phase-only keys as three decryption keys besides transformation angles regarded as additional keys. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulation results validate the feasibility of the proposed method.