Image steganography algorithm based on edge region detection and hybrid coding

Kumar Gaurav, Umesh Ghanekar
COMPUTER MODELLING & NEW TECHNOLOGIES 2018 22(1) 40-56
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, India

In this paper, a novel steganography algorithm based on local reference edge detection technique and exclusive disjunction (XOR) property is proposed. Human eyes are less sensitive towards intensity changes in the sharp edge region compared to the uniform region of the image. Because of this, the secret message bits have been embedded in the sharp regions by local reference pixels that are located in the edge blocks. The predefined sets of pixels are easily identifi ed with less computational complexity in the stego image. The embedding algorithm improved in terms of security and capacity using bit plane dependent XOR coding technique that makes least possible alterations in LSB bits of edge pixels. The existing edge-based steganography techniques provide better imperceptibility but relatively limits the embedding capacity. The proposed method efficiently improves the embedding capacity with an acceptable range of imperceptibility and robustness. The simulation results evaluated using full reference image quality assessment method, it exhibits better embedding capacity (bpp) compared to existing steganography techniques retaining the values of PSNR and structural similarity (SSIM).