Primary quantization matrix estimation of double compressed JPEG images via CNN

Abstract: Available model-based techniques for the estimation of the primary quantization matrix in double-compressed JPEG images work only under specific conditions regarding the relationship between the first and second compression quality factors, and the alignment of the first and second JPEG compression grids. In this paper, we propose a single CNN-based estimation technique that can work under a very general range of settings. We do so, by adapting a dense CNN network to the problem at hand. Particular attention is paid to the choice of the loss function. Experimental results highlight several advantages of the new method, including: i) capability of working under very general conditions, ii) improved performance in terms of MSE and accuracy especially in the non-aligned case, iii) better spatial resolution due to the ability of providing good results also on small image patches.