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There was a question like this, but it was about JPG pictures. I have the same one about PNG pictures.

I've recently had trouble where someone stole an artwork of mine and put it as a YouTube avatar. My mistake was that I didn't watermark it in any way. Now, I think that watermarks can be erased by using the Posterize effect in painting programs.

I'm wondering if it's possible to insert hidden information about my copyright into my PNG pictures in a way that people can't see it, but that an admin can use a program for scanning DRM to see the proof that the artwork is mine.

The DRM must NOT prevent the pictures from being seen on browsers, downloaded to devices, copied or renamed on their storage devices, shared/reposted(with permission)/linked on other websites. The DRM must NOT have any adware/malware/spyware on my pictures. The DRM must work regardless of how people stretch, crop or convert my picture. The pictures must just be trackable by the DRM information so that whoever uses my artwork can be caught.

Does anyone know for any DRM inserting and scanning programs for PNG pictures?

Foxcat385
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    What you are asking is basically impossible - if I crop a single pixel out of your image, it won't have any information in. There will be a maximum level of distortion that will break any hidden DRM. Furthermore, any method that relies on a specific file format can be broken by conversion - if you have PNG data, conversion to JPEG will wipe it. If you rely on hidden colour values in PNG, a posterize effect will wipe them. Alternatively, JPEG conversion will smear them. If it is online, people can copy it. – Matthew Nov 09 '15 at 13:13
  • @MarkHulkalo The problem then is that it will be broken given a certain amount of cropping/stretching. It's just not possible to hide information in a way that isn't affected in at least one of the ways specified. All methods have a point at which they break - steganography doesn't handle cropping well, generally, and only work with sufficiently detailed and sized images. Watermarks can be blurred out. Metadata can be removed. And the whole lot gets bypassed by someone with a camera phone and a steady hand. – Matthew Nov 09 '15 at 15:37

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