Using edge histogram descriptor of MPEG-7 for the measurement of image quality and modifications

A novel image quality assessment using the edge histogram descriptor (EHD) of MPEG-7 is presented. Neither additional data nor fragile watermarking is needed for the quality assessment and the image content authentication. Also, the original image is not needed for our method, no need to access the original image as a reference. Only the EHD metadata of the original image and the received (noisy or altered) one are required. The PSNR (Peak to Signal-to-Noise Ratio) or the mean-square error (MSE) is obtained by comparing the EHD extracted from the received image and that of the original image attached as the meta-data. Then, it is used to assess the level of the image degradation and any illicit modification of the image. Experimental results show that the PSNRs calculated from the two EHDs are similar to those calculated from the pixel-to-pixel comparisons of original and received images. This implies that one can use the EHD, instead of the image data, to calculate the PSNR for the image assessment. Also, since the EHD extracted from the received image is prone to be changed according to the alterations of the image content, one can also use the proposed method as the image authentication purpose.