METHODS FOR ESTIMATING WATERMARK SIGNAL STRENGTH, AN EMBEDDING PROCESS USING THE SAME, AND RELATED ARRANGEMENTS

The present disclosure relates to advanced signal processing including digital watermarking and steganography. One method includes: obtaining image data representing imagery in a first color mode; steganographically embedding a watermark signal into the image data, thereby generating watermarked image data; obtaining reader data representing an input color mode of a reader configured to detect or decode the watermarked image data, wherein the input color mode is different from the first color mode; transforming the watermarked image data from the first color mode to the input color mode; estimating a signal strength of the watermark signal within the transformed watermark image data; and visually displaying the estimated signal strength. The estimated signal strength can be visually displayed as a multi-color heat map. Of course, other combinations are described as well.