An adaptive hybrid fuzzy-wavelet approach for image steganography using bit reduction and pixel adjustment

Abstract

Transform-based techniques partially address challenges like robustness and the imperceptibility in image steganography. Such approaches, however, increase the memory requirement and reduce the quality of the cover image and hiding capacity. Moreover, the steganography is always coupled with cryptography to strengthen the confidentiality. This paper presents an adaptive hybrid method for image steganography procedure based on bit reduction and pixel adjustment using the fuzzy logic and integer wavelet transform technique. The fuzzy set theory provides powerful tools to represent and process human knowledge in the form of fuzzy if-then rules that can resolve difficulties in image processing arising due to the uncertainty of the data, tasks, and results. We apply a bit reduction algorithm to each byte of the data which are to hide in the cover image. This decreases the memory usage and increases the capacity. The embedding of the input text into the cover image distorts the cover image. Hence, to minimize the visual difference between the cover image and the text embedded image, an optimum pixel adjustment algorithm is applied to the text embedded image. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed approach.