Quantum representation and watermark strategy for color images based on the controlled rotation of qubits

In this paper, a novel quantum representation and watermarking scheme based on the controlled rotation of qubits are proposed. Firstly, a flexible representation for quantum color image (FRQCI) is proposed to facilitate the image processing tasks. Some basic image processing operations based on FRQCI representation are introduced. Then, a novel watermarking scheme for quantum images is presented. In our scheme, the carrier image is stored in the phase \(\theta \) of a qubit; at the same time, the watermark image is embedded into the phase \(\phi \) of a qubit, which will not affect the carrier image’s visual effect. Before being embedded into the carrier image, the watermark image is scrambled to be seemingly meaningless using quantum circuits, which further ensures the security of the watermark image. All the operations mentioned above are implemented by the controlled rotation of qubits. The experimental results on the classical computer show that the proposed watermarking scheme has better visual quality under a higher embedding capacity and outperforms the existing schemes in the literature.