Adaptive local complexity controlled data hiding method considering the human visual sensitivity

Abstract

AbstractThis paper proposes a human visual system based data hiding method with the consideration of the local complexity in images. It is known that human vision is more sensitive to the changes in smooth area than that of complex area, we embed less data into blocks with low complexity and embed more data into blocks with rich texture. We use the modified diamond encoding (MDE) as the embedding technique, and employ a sophisticated pixel pair adjustment process to maintain the complexity consistency of blocks before and after embedding data bits. Since the proposed method is robust to LSB-based steganalysis, it is more secure than other existing methods using the LSB replacement as their embedding technique. The experimental results revealed that the proposed method not only offers a better embedding performance, but is also secure under the attack of the LSB based steganalysis tools.