Wavelet-based color modification detection based on variance ratio

Color modification is one of the popular image forgery techniques. It can be used to eliminate criminal evidence in various ways, such as modifying the color of a car used in a crime. If the color of a digital image is modified, the locations of the interpolated and original samples may be changed. Because the original and interpolated pixels have different statistical characteristics, these differences can serve as a basic clue for estimating the degree of color modification. It is assumed that the variance of original samples is greater than that of the interpolated samples. Therefore, we present a novel algorithm for color modification estimation using the variance ratio of color difference images in the wavelet domain. The color difference model is used to emphasize the differences between the original and interpolated samples. For color difference images, we execute a wavelet transform and use the highest frequency subband to calculate variances. We define a variance ratio measurement to quantify the level of color modification. Additionally, changed color local regions can be efficiently detected using the proposed algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method generates accurate estimation results for detecting color modification. Compared to the conventional method, our method provides superior color modification detection performance.