In an example, a method includes, at least one processor, in response to each of a plurality of requests, determining a halftone screen. Determining the halftone screen comprises encoding a signature pattern in the halftone screen, and halftone screens for different requests may be encoded with a different signature pattern. The halftone screen may be arranged such that, when applied to image data to provide a printed output, the pattern is discernible therein to provide a signature for the printed output.

This disclosure relates to advanced image signal processing technology including encoded signals and digital watermarking. The technology may be applied to retail packages and other printed objects, e.g., such as hang tags, labels and receipts.

A system and method is provided for management of digital watermarks, including a system and method for identifying the source of counterfeit copies of multimedia works using layered simple digital watermarks which are difficult to locate, identify and circumvent. The layered digital watermarks may be modulated in a variety of ways, and may be individualized to assist in detection of unlawful copyrighted material infringement by endpoint device and/or the user committing the copyright infringement. In addition, multiple layers of watermarks may be selected and applied by various schemes, such as on-the-fly remotely by the distributor of the copyrighted material. This system and method for management of digital watermarks effectively makes it impossible for a potential copyright infringer to have complete confidence that they located and disabled all of the watermarks in the copyrighted material, and therefore substantially increases the risk of infringer identification and prosecution for copyright violations.

An image processing apparatus includes: an embed-data generating unit configured to generate embed-data, which is to be embedded in input-image-data, the input-image-data representing an image including a first color, the embed-data representing an image including a second color; an inverting unit configured to invert the image represented by the embed-data, in response to meeting a predetermined condition relating to the first color and the second color; and an output-image-data generating unit configured to embed, in the input-image-data, embed-data representing the image that is inverted by the inverting unit, in order to generate output-image-data in a case where the predetermined condition is met, and configured to embed, in the input-image-data, embed-data representing the image that is not inverted by the inverting unit, in order to generate output-image-data in a case where the predetermined condition is not met.

The present invention relates to a method and product resulting from application distortion security images in an anti-copy document, printed on demand, which may be variable and use laser printers or printer/copiers and/or ink-jet printers and/or digital presses.

A system and method for automatic identification of photocopied documents is disclosed wherein the method is performed by capturing an image of a marked printed document; decoding a digital watermark embedded in the image, obtaining a mark identifier; recovering, by searching a database, at least one calibration parameter associated with the mark identifier; applying a discrete Fourier transform to the image, obtaining a frequency matrix; obtaining at least one maximum frequency value in the frequency matrix; comparing the at least one maximum frequency value with at least one calibration parameter; determining, on the basis of the comparison, if the marked printed document is an original document or a photocopied document.

A method for rendering visible security information of a digitally stored image which has a plurality of pixels and at least one piece of digitally coded information comprises at least the following steps: allocating at least some of the pixels to at least one image region; determining an average color value of the pixels allocated to the image region; determining two mutually complementary color values whose average color value is at least approximately identical to the determined average color value of the pixels allocated to the image region; depicting the image region and at least part of the digitally coded security information in a visually perceptible manner. The depicted image region thereby has a first of the mutually complementary color values. The part of the digitally coded security information is depicted within the image region and has a second of the mutually complementary color values.

A watermark image may be generated that includes a first set of encoded pixels each of which is assigned a first transparency value and a second set of encoded pixels each of which is assigned a second transparency value, the second transparency level being different from the first transparency level. The encoded pixels may be distributed among a set of blank pixels such that each encoded pixel neighbors one or more blank pixels in the watermark image, and in particular at least two blank pixels in the watermark image. Herein, each blank pixel may be assigned the second transparency value. The watermark image may be overlaid and blended over a background source image to create an encoded source image. A decoder system may recover encoded information from the encoded source image.

An image processing method for reading additional information from image data obtained by an imaging device capturing an image of a printed product with the additional information embedded therein as an electronic watermark includes acquiring, a plurality of times, distance information about a distance between the imaging device and the printed product, and causing a display to display a predetermined object in such a manner that a display form of the predetermined object changes according to the acquired distance information.

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming device that forms an image on a recording medium and circuitry that controls the image forming device. The image forming device forms an invisible image with an invisible material on the recording medium and forms a visible image with a visible material on the invisible image. Each of first and second adhesion amounts includes respective adhesion amounts of the visible material and the invisible material per unit area in a portion, in which the visible image is formed on the invisible image, of the composite image. The second adhesion amount is smaller than the first adhesion amount. The controller adjusts the amount of the invisible material included in the second adhesion amount to be smaller than that included in the first adhesion amount, to cause the image forming device to form the image according to the second adhesion amount.