High fidelity based reversible data hiding using modified LSB matching and pixel difference

Abstract

Owing to the inefficiency to hide large volume of secret data for the reversible data hiding (RDH) image steganography approaches, we propose two improved RDH based approaches, such as (1) improved dual image based least significant bit (LSB) matching with reversibility, and (2) n-rightmost bit replacement (n-RBR) and modified pixel value differencing (MPVD). The first approach extends the ability of LSB matching with reversibility using dual images. Whereas the second approach utilizes four identical cover images for secret data embedding using two phases, such as (1) n-rightmost bit replacement (n-RBR) and (2) modified pixel value differencing (MPVD). In the n-RBR phase, n bits of secret data are embedded in the pair of two neighboring pixels of the first two identical images, where 1 ≤ n ≤ 4. Correspondingly, the MPVD phase uses the third and fourth identical images for hiding the secret data. Experimental results with respect to peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), embedding capacity (EC), structural similarity index (SSIM), and the comparative analysis with recently proposed state-of-art approaches exhibit the superiority of the proposed approach. Besides reversibility, the proposed approach ensures high fidelity to salt and pepper (S&P) noise, RS analysis, and pixel difference histogram (PDH) analysis.