PVO Based Reversible Secret Data Hiding Technique in YCbCr Color Space

Abstract

AbstractIn the current paper, it is proposed that PVO based secret data hiding technique is outperformed in different color space, such as YCbCr color space in comparison to RGB color space. The R, G, and B color components in the color image are correlated to each other, so any change in one color component may also change in other color components, which ultimately results in severe distortion in the color image. However, if the color image is processed in YCbCr color space, distortion does not become additive. This is due to the non-correlation nature of Y (luminance) component and Cb, Cr (chrominance) components. In addition to this, the image in YCbCr color space provides a narrowed and high peak histogram of prediction errors, which is more suitable for embedding additional secret data using block-based PVO technique. To improve the quality of the stego image in the current technique, we calculate the standard deviation of surrounding pixels of the PVO block and accordingly classify the PVO block into a complex region and a smooth region. Then, only a smooth region is processed to embed secret data while leaving the complex region. Therefore, the current paper proposes a secret data hiding technique in YCbCr color space, which not only improves data hiding capacity but also enhances image quality.KeywordsPVOData hidingColor spaceCapacityLuminanceChrominance