A Novel High Quality High Capacity Image Hiding Scheme Based on Image Compression and an Optical Pixel Adjustment Process

Abstract

ABSTRACT Image hiding methods embed a secret image into a host image. The resultant stego-image does not attract the interceptors that would not detect the differences between the host image and the stego-image. To exploit the great developments in the area of image compression and to improve the quality of stego-image, this paper proposes a new method to embed the secret image into the host image. Basically, the secret image is compressed and then embedded into host image. The embedding method is based on the Optimal Pixel Adjustment Process (OPAP) and genetic algorithm. In the paper we addressed the important issues to build such systems. The experimental results showed that the proposed method can improve the quality from 60% to 80% when compared with the simple Least Significant Bit (LSB) replacement methods. Adding to that, the mean square error of the stego-image is much lower compared with other methods (Chan & Cheng, 2004; Chang, Hsiao, & Chan, 2003; Thien & Lin, 2003; Tseng, Chan, Ho, & Chu, 208; Wang, Lin, & Lin, 2001). Also, the proposed technique improves capacity. In other words, we can embed a secret image with size 450 × 450 inside a hosting image with size 512 × 512.