A Large Payload Data Embedding Technique for Color Images

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Chou, Yung-Chen | Chang, Chin-Chen | Li, Kuan-Ming

Affiliations: Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi 62102, Taiwan, R.O.C. [email protected] | Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, Feng Chia University, Taichung 40724, Taiwan, R.O.C. [email protected] | Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi 62102, Taiwan, R.O.C. [email protected]

Note: [] Address for correspondence: No. 100 Wenhwa Rd., Seatwen, Taichung 40724, Taiwan, R.O.C.

Abstract: This paper proposes a large payload data embedding method for color images. Under the fast advancement of digital equipments, color images have become a common medium in many applications. A color image can be represented in different color systems, for instance, RGB and YUV color systems. The proposed method modifies the blue value of the color pixel in order to imply the secret data because the blue value is an insensitive color to human eyes. Furthermore, the number of secret bits that can be embedded into a cover pixel is dynamic so the proposed method tries to embed the secret data as many as possible. The proposed method can be applied to both RGB and YUV color systems. However, for anti-stegoanalysis reason, the RGB color system is suitable for the proposed high capacity data embedding method with lower image distortion. The experimental results show that the proposed method is superior to other methods we compared in terms of embedding capacity and visual quality.

Keywords: Data embedding, RGB, steganography, YUV

Journal: Fundamenta Informaticae, vol. 88, no. 1-2, pp. 47-61, 2008