4LSB BASED DATA HIDING IN COMPLEX REGION OF DIGITAL IMAGES AND ITS EFFECTS ON EDGES AND HISTOGRAM

Abstract

Data hiding in the complex regions of cover image make the use of edges for hiding and communicating secret information. The complex region in a digital image is the least sensitive to human visual system (HVS) in term of changes than smooth region. The data hiding in the complex regions affect the edges and the histogram of the image. These two may cause the existence of hidden information to be detected. In this paper, the effect on image edges and histogram is investigated when subjected to true edge based 4 least significant bits (4LSB) steganography. The true edge based 4LSB steganography technique has been found very efficient, creating no significant effect on edges and undetectable histogram differences. Which prove this technique immune to histogram difference steganalysis. The quality of the edges is preserved and a PNSR of greater than 74dB has been observed for different cover images for the true edge based 4LSB steganography. The quality of stego images, edges can been observed qualitatively and it be seen clearly that no significant changes are introduced due to hiding information in edges using the true edge based steganography.