Reversible data hiding employing histogram shifting using a rotated even–odd difference image

Abstract

Reversible data hiding, a technique that can recover an undistorted original image from a watermarked one, has drawn considerable attention in recent years. However, most of the current reversible data-hiding algorithms based on histogram modification have underflow and overflow problems with regard to the watermarked image. In order to overcome these problems in the proposed algorithm, we implement a location map that indicates the positions of the underflow and overflow problems and include the compressed location map in the hidden data. In addition, the proposed algorithm allows multi-level data hiding in order to increase the data-hiding capacity. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm generates a superior performance in the peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) values and the embedding capacity.