Sensors, Vol. 24, Pages 7701: Plug-and-Play PRNU Enhancement Algorithm with Guided Filtering

Sensors, Vol. 24, Pages 7701: Plug-and-Play PRNU Enhancement Algorithm with Guided Filtering

Sensors doi: 10.3390/s24237701

Authors: Yufei Liu Yanhui Xiao Huawei Tian

As a weak high-frequency signal embedded in digital images, Photo Response Non-Uniformity (PRNU) is particularly vulnerable to interference from low-frequency components during the extraction process, which affects its reliability in real-world forensic applications. Previous studies have not successfully identified the effective frequency band of PRNU, leaving low-frequency interference insufficiently suppressed and impacting PRNU’s utility in scenarios such as source camera identification, image integrity verification, and identity verification. Additionally, due to differing operational mechanisms, current mainstream PRNU enhancement algorithms cannot be integrated to improve their performance further. To address these issues, we conducted a frequency-by-frequency analysis of the estimated PRNU and discovered that it predominantly resides in the frequency band above 10 Hz. Based on this finding, we propose a guided-filtering PRNU enhancement algorithm. This algorithm can function as a plug-and-play module, seamlessly integrating with existing mainstream enhancement techniques to further boost PRNU performance. Specifically, we use the PRNU components below 10 Hz as a guide image and apply guided filtering to reconstruct the low-frequency interference components. By filtering out these low-frequency components, we retain and enhance the high-frequency PRNU signal. By setting appropriate enhancement coefficients, the low-frequency interference is suppressed, and the high-frequency components are further amplified. Extensive experiments on publicly available Dresden and Daxing digital device forensics datasets confirm the efficiency and robustness of the proposed method, making it highly suitable for reliable forensic analysis in practical settings.