A combined image steganographic method using multi-way pixel-value differencing
Hsiao-Shan Huang · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2015
In order to increase the hiding capacity and provide visually imperceptible changes of an image, a multi-way pixelvalue differencing scheme is proposed in this paper. A threshold value is designated to distinguish between edge-like and smooth blocks. The smooth blocks adopt the original tri-way pixel-value differencing (TPVD) method whereas the edgelike blocks apply the proposed mode selection algorithm to further determine the data embedding way by utilizing horizontal or vertical edges. In addition, a further altering process is conducted to achieve the original partitioning results after the embedding procedure so that the stego-images can extract secret data without the participation of the original cover images. The experimental results show that the proposed method can embed a large hiding capacity in a cover image and the image quality remains high.