A Block Based Reversible Data Hiding Scheme for Digital Images Using Optimal Value Computation

Abstract

Recently, more importance is given to reversible data hiding (RDH) schemes because it restores original cover image without loss after the secret data is extracted and it is useful in authentication and integrity checking. In this paper, a novel RDH scheme for digital images is proposed that has high capacity with low distortion. The cover image is divided into blocks and all the pixels in the block are converted into odd value or even value by computing the optimal value of the block. The optimal value is mean, median, max histogram or min---max average which is very nearer to the pixels in the block. Secret data is directly embedded into blocks using odd even property. In the receiving end, after extracting secret data cover image can be recovered to its original form by computing the same optimal value. The proposed scheme is tested with several monochrome images and color images. The experimental results reveal that the proposed scheme has high hiding capacity with low distortion.