Multimed Tools Appl

DOI 10.1007/s11042-013-1369-0

High capacity reversible hiding scheme based

on interpolation, difference expansion,
and histogram shifting

Tzu-Chuen Lu & Chin-Chen Chang & Ying-Hsuan Huang

# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Abstract Difference expansion and histogram shifting methods are two popular hiding
strategies that have been widely used in many researches. For example, Hong and Chen
developed a reversible hiding method based on interpolation and histogram shifting. The
image quality of their scheme is exceptional; however, their scheme needs to keep and
transmit two peak points for secret data extraction and pixel recovering. Moreover, the
reference pixels in their scheme cannot be used to embed secret data that will decrease the
hiding capacity. Therefore, this paper shall propose a reversible hiding method to enhance
their scheme. The proposed method applies the difference expansion, histogram shifting and
interpolation strategies to conceal secret data in the reference pixels for increasing the hiding
payload. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method performs better in terms of
hiding capacity than recently developed methods.

Keywords Reversible hiding . Difference expansion . Histogram shifting . Interpolation

T.-C. Lu
Department of Information Management, Chaoyang University of Technology, Taichung 41349, Taiwan,
Republic of China
e-mail: tclu@cyut.edu.tw

C.-C. Chang
Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, Feng Chia University, Taichung 40724,
Taiwan, Republic of China

C.-C. Chang (*)

Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Asia University, Taichung 41354,
Taiwan, Republic of China
e-mail: alan3c@gmail.com

Y.-H. Huang
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung 40227,
Taiwan, Republic of China
e-mail: phd9807@cs.nchu.edu.tw
 Multimed Tools Appl

1 Introduction

Internet is a convenient and speedy way to share and transmit digital data. In order to ensure the
confidentiality of the transmitted data, many people use cryptographic techniques to encrypt the
data to generate the meaningless ciphertext [3, 8, 9]. However, the ciphertext might be attacked
by illegal hackers. To overcome this problem, many information hiding methods have been
developed [1, 4–7, 10–18, 20–26, 28–31]. A hiding method embeds secret data into a cover
image to generate a stego image. Because the cover image and stego image are similar, hackers
cannot detect that the secret information is concealed in the stego image.
Information hiding schemes can be further divided into two categories, reversible [1, 4, 5,
7, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20–25, 28, 31] and irreversible [6, 12, 15, 18, 29, 30]. An
irreversible hiding scheme can extract the secret information but can not recover the original
image from the stego image. On the contrary, a reversible hiding scheme not only can extract
the secret information but also recover the original image from the stego image.
In the past decade, many reversible hiding methods have been developed. Most of them are
based on compression [4, 5], difference expansion [1, 16, 21, 23] and histogram shifting
techniques [10, 11, 14, 17, 22, 24, 28, 31]. For example, Celik et al. developed a
compression-based reversible hiding method in 2005 [4]. In the scheme, a cover image is
quantified to produce an image. Next, the differences between the cover pixels and quantifica-
tion pixels are calculated and compressed by a lossless compression method. The compressed
results, along with the secret data, were embedded into the cover image to generate the stego
image. The scheme is simple. However, the amount of the compression results is massive,
thereby seriously influencing the image quality and reducing the hiding capacity.
Hence, Chan et al. applied Haar digital wavelet transform (HDWT) and Huffman coding
to improve Celik et al.’s scheme [5]. In their scheme, a spatial-domain cover image is
transformed into the frequency-domain image, which consists of four sub-bands: low-low
(LL), high-low (HL), low-high (LH) and high-high (HH). The coefficients in the HH sub-
band are compressed by Huffman coding. The compression results and secret data are
embedded into HH sub-bands.
Chan et al.’s scheme is great for smooth images but not good for complex images.
Because the size of the compressed codes for a complex image is huge, the scheme cannot
spare more space for hiding secret data.
Tian developed a difference expansion (DE) method for embedding secret data in 2003
[23]. In Tian’s scheme, the average value and the difference between two adjacent pixels are
calculated. The difference is then doubled to generate an even value. Then, the secret bit is
added into the even value to produce an expansion difference. The expansion difference is
then equally shared with the adjacent pixels. The hiding capacity of Tian’s scheme is lower
than 0.5 bpp.
To increase the hiding capacity of Tian’s scheme, Alattar developed an integer transform
method in 2004 [1]. In the scheme, four cover pixels can be used to embed three secret bits.
Therefore, the ideal hiding capacity of this method is 0.75 bpp. In the same year, Thodi and
Rodriguez designed a reversible hiding method based on the inherent primitive edge detector
[21]. The edge detector is used to generate a prediction value. The difference between the
current embedding pixel and the prediction value is calculated. The scheme doubles the
difference and embeds the secret bit in the expansion difference. The image quality of this
method is satisfactory and its hiding capacity is close to 1 bpp.
In 2009, Tseng and Hsieh developed a prediction-based reversible hiding method [25], in
which the scheme first computes a prediction value for the current embedding pixel. The
prediction value is the average value of the upper pixel and the left pixel. Then, the scheme
Multimed Tools Appl

calculates the difference between the current pixel and the average value. If the difference is
smaller than a predefined threshold, the difference can be used to embed secret data.
Although image quality with this method is high, its hiding capacity can be enhanced
further. Furthermore, the hiding capacity of this method is related to a pre-determined
threshold. However, setting an appropriate threshold is difficult for users.
Liu et al., in 2011, proposed a reversible data hiding method based on DE and bilinear
interpolation. In their scheme, two secret bits can be embedded into one cover pixel [16].
This approach divides the cover image into several blocks, sized 2×2. Next, the prediction
value is produced by the bilinear interpolation method, and the difference between the
current embedding pixel and the prediction value is calculated for each block. The maximum
absolute difference for each block is extracted to determine whether the pixel in a block can
embed two secret bits or not. If the maximum absolute difference is smaller than the pre-
determined threshold, then the pixel can embed two secret bits. Therefore, the ideal hiding
capacity of this method is better than that of the other four methods [1, 21, 23, 25].
The hiding methods based on DE [1, 21, 23] have excellent hiding capacity. However, this
kind of method may have overflow and underflow problems. To overcome such problems, DE-
based methods [1, 21, 23] usually use a location map to record the pixel having an overflow or
underflow problem. In addition, a location map is concealed into the cover image along with the
secret message for the receiver to restore the original image. The location map and extra
restoration information may seriously distort the image and reduce the hiding capacity.
Histogram is another popular technique used in information hiding [10, 11, 14, 17, 22, 24,
28, 31]. In 2006, Ni et al. developed a histogram-based hiding method [17]. In this scheme, the
pixel in the cover image is compiled to generate a histogram. The most frequently occurring
cover pixel in the histogram is called the peak point and the least frequently occurring cover
pixel is called the zero point. The pixels ranging from the right one of the peak point to the zero
point are increased by 1 to create a concealing space, while the pixels of the peak point are used
to embed secret data. Therefore, the maximum modification of a pixel with this method is 1.
Although the stego image quality produced by this method is great, the hiding capacity is poor.
In 2007, Thodi and Rodriguez combined the inherent primitive edge detector and
histogram techniques to improve the image quality and hiding capacity of Tian’s method
and Thodi and Rodriguez’s method [22]. Although the hiding capacity and image quality of
this method are satisfactory, the approach requires an overflow location map to record
whether a pixel can embed a secret message or not. To reduce the size of the overflow
location map, Hu et al. designed a payload-dependent overflow location map [11]. Their
scheme divides the histogram into two regions; one is an embeddable region and the other is
a shifting region. The pixels having the overflow problem of the shifting region is fewer than
those of the embeddable region. Therefore, the size of the overflow location map of Hu’s
scheme is smaller than that of Thodi and Rodriguez’s scheme.
Besides, Tsai et al. proposed a linear prediction reversible data hiding method [24]. In
their scheme, the cover image is divided into several non-overlapping blocks, sized 3×3.
Differences between the center pixel and its eight adjacent pixels are calculated for each
block. Tsai et al. generated a difference histogram for hiding secret message. Because the
center pixel is similar to its adjacent pixel, most of differences are close to 0. They concealed
the secret message in the adjacent pixels, whose difference is equal to 0. In their scheme, the
center pixel is a prediction value that cannot be used to embed secret data.
In 2009, Yang et al. proposed a reversible data hiding method based on interleaving a
max-min difference histogram [28]. Different from Tsai et al.’s method [24], Yang et al.’s
scheme uses the maximum or minimum pixel to generate the prediction value for each block.
Consequently, the prediction result and hiding capacity of Yang et al.’s scheme are good.
 Multimed Tools Appl

Li et al. also proposed a histogram-based reversible hiding method in 2009 [14]. Two
neighboring pixels are subtracted to compute the difference. The differences are then
compiled to generate a histogram. They then choose one peak point to embed secret data.
The image quality and hiding capacity of their method are good; however, the scheme needs
to keep one peak point to extract secret data and recover the original image. In order to
remove the extra information, Zhao et al. proposed the multilevel histogram modification
method based on Li et al.’s scheme [31]. They used an integer pointer to determine whether
the difference in the histogram is embeddable or not. The method does not maintain the extra
information such as peak point or zero point.
Hong and Chen utilized the interpolation method, histogram method and detection
technique of smooth and complex blocks to embed secret data [10]. In their scheme, the
cover image is divided into several blocks, and these blocks are classified into smooth block
or complex block. If the block is complex, the pixel remains unchanged. Otherwise, the
interpolation method and pre-determined reference pixel are used to produce the interpola-
tion pixel. The difference between the interpolation pixel and embeddable pixel is calculated
to compile a histogram. They also use two peak points to embed secret data. Similar with Li
et al.’s scheme, Hong and Chen’s scheme also needs to maintain the extra information.
Moreover, in their scheme, the reference pixel cannot be used to conceal secret data. In Hong
and Chen’s method, if the number of secret data is higher than the frequency of peak point,
then the algorithm is reapplied to embed the remaining secret data that will increase
computational burden and time cost.
Therefore, this paper shall propose an enhanced hiding scheme to improve Hong and
Chen’s scheme. The proposed scheme applies DE, histogram and bilinear interpolation
strategies to embed a secret message. In the proposed scheme, the reference pixel also can
be used to embed the message. Hence, the hiding capacity of the proposed scheme is high
and its stego image quality is satisfactory.

2 Related work

Hong and Chen’s algorithm is expressed as follows [10].

Step 1: Classify cover pixel Pi,j as the reference pixel and the embeddable pixel by using
the equation:


0; if mod ði; ΔÞ ¼ 0 and mod ðj; ΔÞ ¼ 0;
Ii;j ¼
1; otherwise;

where Ii,j represents the pixel and is the reference pixel or the embeddable pixel. i
and j represent the position of the pixel in the cover image and Δ refers to a
threshold used to  control
 the number of reference pixels. 
Step 2: If Ii;j ¼ 0; mod Δi þ Δj ¼ 0; and Range PiΔ;j ; Pi;jΔ ; PiþΔ;j ; Pi;jþΔ < T1 , then
modify Ii,j as 1. In other words, the reference pixel is changed as the embeddable
pixel. Notably, T1 is the second threshold used to reduce the number of reference
pixels.   
Step 3: If the four indices Ii;j ; IiþΔ;j ; Ii;jþΔ ; IiþΔ;jþΔ are equal to 0 and Range Ii ; j ; Ii þΔ; j ;
0 0
Ii;jþΔ ; IiþΔ;jþΔ Þ > T2 , modify Ii',j' as 0, where i  i  i þ Δ; j  j  i þ Δ, and T2
refers to the third threshold, which increases the number of reference pixels to reduce
image distortion.
Multimed Tools Appl

Step 4: To avoid underflow/overflow problems, if the cover pixel Pi,j is equal to 0, then
change the cover pixel Pi,j to be 1 and record its position information (i.e., i and j).
If the cover pixel Pi,j equals 255, then change the cover pixel Pi,j to be 254 and
record its position information.
Step 5: Compress the position information in Step 4 by using the run-length compression
method.
Step 6: Obtain interpolation pixel P b i;j by using all reference pixels (i.e., Ii,j =0) and the
interpolation method.
Step 7: Calculate the prediction error ei,j between the embeddable pixel (i.e., Ii,j =1) and
interpolation pixel Pb i;j .
Step 8: Compile the occurrence number of prediction error ei,j to produce a prediction error
histogram. In the histogram, M1 denotes the prediction error with most occurrence
frequency. M2 refers to the prediction error with the second largest occurrence
frequency.
Step 9: Embed secret data and the compressed results into prediction error ei,j by using the
following equation:
8
>
> ei;j þ w; if e i ; j ¼ M 1 ;
<
0 ei;j  w; if e i ; j ¼ M 2 ;
e i;j ¼
>
> e þ 1; if e i ; j > M 1 ;
: i;j
ei;j  1; if e i ; j < M 2 ;

where w represents secret data and compressed results.

0
b i;j , i.e.,
Step 10: The modified prediction error ei;j is increased by interpolation pixel P
0 0
b 0
Pi;j ¼ ei;j þ Pi;j , where Pi;j denotes the stego pixel.

3 Proposed scheme

The proposed method has two phases—the data embedding phase and the extraction and
recovering phase. Both of them are introduced in Subsection 3.1 and Subsection 3.2,
respectively. Subsection 3.3 examines the overflow and underflow problems and applies a
mechanism to resolve them.

3.1 Data embedding phase

Figure 1 shows our flowchart of the embedding phase, with its details described as follows. The
pixels in a cover image sized W×H are classified into two types: the reference pixels, Rk ðk ¼
       
1; 2; . . . ; W2  H2 Þ; and the embeddable pixels, El ðl ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; W  H  W2  H2 Þ;
where k and l represent the location of the reference pixel and that of the embeddable pixel. The
diagram is shown in Fig. 2. After reference pixelRkand embeddable
 pixel El are determined, the
interpolation pixels Il ðl ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; W  H  W2  H2 Þ are obtained by using the equation
!
X
n
Il ¼ avg negzl ; n 2 f2; 4g: ð1Þ
z¼1

Equation (1) is equivalent to the traditional bi-linear interpolation method. The equation
is used to compute the average value of the reference pixels which around the embeddable
 Multimed Tools Appl

Select Predict Pixel by Using

Cover Image
Reference Pixel Interpolation

Calculate the Difference

Embed Secret Data
Stego Image between Embeddable Pixel
into Difference
and Interpolation Pixel

Calculate the Difference

Embed Secret Data
between Reference Pixel Stego Image
into Difference
and Stego Pixel

Fig. 1 Flowchart of our embedding phase

pixel El. In this equation, n denotes the number of neighboring reference pixels of pixel El, and
negzl represents the zth neighboring reference pixel of the pixel El; for example, the reference
pixels of E4 are R1, R2, R3 and R4. Hence, I4 is the average value of these four pixels.
Next, the scheme computes the difference dl between the embeddable pixel El and
interpolation pixel Il, i.e., dl =El −Il. If the absolute difference |dl| is larger than the pre-
determined threshold T, then the pixel is non-embeddable. The scheme applies the histogram
shifting equation to shift the pixel. The shifting equation is


0 El þ ðT þ 1Þ; if jd l j > T and d l  0;
El ¼ ð2Þ
El  ðT þ 1Þ; if jd l j > T and d l < 0:

Otherwise, if the absolute difference |dl| is smaller than the pre-determined threshold T,
then the scheme embed a secret message s by using the equation
0
El ¼ Il þ 2  dl þ s; ð3Þ
0
where s∊{0,1} and El is the stego pixel.
In order to increase the hiding capacity, the scheme also embeds a secret message into the
reference pixels Rk. The embedding process of Rk is similar to that of El, and it is listed below:
&
0
Compute the difference dk between the reference pixel Rk and its right pixel Ek , i.e.,
0
dk ¼ Rk  Ek .

Fig. 2 Cover image

R1 E1 R2 E2
E3 E4 E5 E6
R3 E7 R4 E8
E9 E10 E11 E12
Multimed Tools Appl

& Determine if the reference pixel is embeddable or not. If the absolute difference |dk| is
larger than the pre-determined threshold T, the reference pixel Rk is shifted by using the
shifting equation


0 Rk þ ðT þ 1Þ; if jd k j > T and d k  0;
Rk ¼ ð4Þ
Rk  ðT þ 1Þ; if jd k j > T and d k < 0:

Otherwise, if the absolute difference |dk| is smaller than the pre-determined threshold T,
the scheme embeds the secret message by using the equation
0 0
Rk ¼ Ek þ 2  dk þ s: ð5Þ
The proposed setting threshold method is the same as that of Chang et al.’s method [7].
The number of the difference d ranged in [–T, T] is counted. If the hiding capacity is smaller
than the number of secret messages, threshold T is then increased by one. Otherwise, the
current threshold T is an appropriate threshold, capable of improving stego image quality
more than other thresholds.
An example is presented to illustrate the embedding procedure. Figure 3(a) shows an
example cover image, sized 4×4. Suppose that the secret bits are {0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
0, 0, 0, 1} and the threshold T is four. First, the four reference pixels are {160, 160, 150, 150}.
Then, the interpolation pixels Il= {160, 160, 155, 155, 155, 155, 150, 150, 150, 150, 150, 150}
are obtained by using Eq. (1). The differences dl between the embeddable pixels El and the
interpolation pixels Il are calculated: d1 =E1 −I1 =160−160=0, d2 =E2 −I2 =160−160=0, and so
on. The first and second differences (d1 =0 and d2 =0) are less than the threshold, hence Eq. (3)
0
is used to embed the secret data {0, 1}. The results of embedding are E1 ¼ I1 þ 2  d1 þ s ¼
0
160 þ 2  0 þ 0 ¼ 160 and E2 ¼ I2 þ 2  d2 þ s=160+2×0+1=161.
Next, the third and fourth differences (d3 =−5 and d4 =−5) are larger than the threshold T,
0 0
hence they are shifted using Eq. (2): E3 ¼ E3  ðT þ 1Þ ¼ 150  ð4 þ 1Þ ¼ 145 and E4 ¼
E4  ðT þ 1Þ ¼ 150  ð4 þ 1Þ ¼ 145 . The differences (d5 =0, d6 =0, d7 =0, d8 =0, d9 =0,
d10 =0, d11 =0, and d12 =0) are smaller than the threshold T, so the secret data {1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
0, 0} are embedded into the embeddable pixels. Figure 3(b) presents the stego image.
To increase the hiding capacity, the reference pixels are used to embed secret data. First,
the differences dk between the reference pixels Rk and the pixels Ek′ on the right hand side of
0 0
Rk are calculated: d1 ¼ R1  E1 ¼ 160  160 ¼ 0; d2 ¼ R2  E2 ¼ 160  161 ¼ 1 , and
so on. These four differences are less than the threshold T, so Eq. (5) is utilized to embed
0 0
secret bits {0, 0, 0, 1}. The results are R1 ¼ E1 þ 2  d1 þ s ¼ 160 þ 2  0 þ 0 ¼
0 0
160; R2 ¼ E2 þ 2  d2 þ s ¼ 161 þ 2  ð1Þ þ 0 ¼ 159 , and so on. Figure 3(c) displays
the stego image with high hiding capacity.

160 160 160 160 160 160 160 161 160 160 159 161
150 150 155 155 145 145 156 155 145 145 156 155
150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 151 150
150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150

(a) Cover image (b) Stego image (c) Stego image with
high hiding capacity

Fig. 3 Example of embedding data procedure

 Multimed Tools Appl

3.2 Extraction and recovery phase

Figure 4 shows our flowchart of the extraction and recovery phase, with its details described
as follows. When a receiver obtains the stego image and the threshold T, the stego pixel will
0     
be classified as the reference pixel, Rk k ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; W2  H2 ; and embedded pixel,
0     
El l ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; W  H  W2  H2 ; in the same way as in data embedding phase. The
0
scheme first extracts the concealed message from the reference pixels. The difference dk
0 0 0 0 0
between the stego reference pixel Rk and its right pixel Ek is derived by dk ¼ Rk  Ek . If
0 0
dk  2  T þ 1 , the reference pixel Rk has a secret message in it. The scheme extracts the
secret bit s by using the equation
0
s ¼ mod dk ; 2 ð6Þ

and recovers the original reference pixel Rk by using the equation

8 0
>
> 0 jd j 0 0
< Ek þ 2k ; if Rk  Ek ;
Rk ¼ ð7Þ
>
> 0
0
jd j
: Ek  2k ; otherwise:

0
Otherwise, if dk > 2  T þ 1 , the reference pixel does not have a secret message in it.
The original reference pixel Rk can be recovered by using the equation

0 0 0
Rk  ðT þ 1Þ; if Rk  Ek ;
Rk ¼ 0 ð8Þ
Rk þ ðT þ 1Þ; otherwise:
0 0
Next, the scheme extracts the message from El . First, the interpolation pixel, Il 
    
l ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; W  H  W2  H2 ; is generated by Eq. (1). Then, the scheme calculates

Calculate the Difference

Select
Stego Image between Reference Pixel
Reference Pixel
and Stego Pixel

Predict Pixel by Extract Secret Bit

Stego Image
Using Interpolation and Recover Pixel

Calculate the Difference

Extract Secret Bit
between Embeddable Pixel Cover Image
and Recover Pixel
and Interpolation Pixel

Fig. 4 Flowchart of our extraction and recovery phase

Multimed Tools Appl

0 0 0 0 0
the difference dl between the embedded pixel El and interpolation pixel Il by dl ¼ El  Il .
0 0
If dl  2  T þ 1 , then the secret message is embedded in El and can be extracted by
using the equation
0
s ¼ mod dl ; 2 : ð9Þ

The original pixel is recovered by using the equation

8 0
>
> 0 jd j 0 0
< Il þ 2l ; if El  Il ;
El ¼ ð10Þ
>
> 0
0
jd j
: Il  2l ; otherwise:

0 0
Otherwise, if dl > 2  T þ 1; El does not have a secret message in it. The original
pixel is recovered by using the equation

0 0 0
El  ðT þ 1Þ; if E l  I l ;
El ¼ 0 ð11Þ
El þ ðT þ 1Þ; otherwise:

An extraction and recovery example is introduced as follows. Figure 3(c) shows a stego image
 0 0 0 0
and the threshold T is four. After reference pixels ( R1 ¼ 160; R2 ¼ 159; R3 ¼ 150; and R4 ¼
0 0 0
151Þ are determined, the differences dk between the reference pixels Rk and its right pixel Ek are
0 0 0 0 0 0
calculated by d1 ¼ R1  E1 ¼ 160  160 ¼ 0; d2 ¼ R2  E2 ¼ 159  161 ¼ 2; and so
 0 0 0 0 
on. Since these four differences d1 ¼ 0; d2 ¼ 2; d3 ¼ 0; and d4 ¼ 0 are less than 2 
T þ 1 , four embedded bits {0, 0, 0, 1} can be extracted using Eq. (6). Meanwhile, the original
0
0 jd j
reference pixels can be recovered using Eq. (7). The recovered pixels are R1 ¼ E1 þ 21 ¼
 0 j k
jd j
160 þ 02 ¼ 160; R2 ¼ E2  22 ¼ 161  j2 j
0
2 ¼ 160 , and so on.
After the reference pixels have been recovered, Eq. (1) is adopted to generate interpolation
0
pixels Il ¼ f160; 160; 155; 155; 155; 155; 150; 150; 150; 150; 150; 150g: Then, the
0 0 0
differences dl between the embedded pixels El and interpolation pixels Il are calculated by
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
d1 ¼ E1  I1 ¼ 160  160 ¼ 0; d2 ¼ E2  I2 ¼ 161  160 ¼ 1; and so forth. Since d1 ¼
0
0 and d2 ¼ 1 two secret bits {0, 1} are extracted using Eq. (9). Additionally, the original pixel
0
0
jd j 
can be restored using Eq. (10). The restored pixels are E1 ¼ I1 þ 21 ¼ 160 þ 02 ¼ 160
0
0
jd2 j 1 0 0
and E2 ¼ I2 þ 2 ¼ 160 þ 2 ¼ 160: Since d3 ¼ 10 > 2  T þ 1 and d4 ¼ 10 >
2  T þ 1; no secret message is embedded. These two pixels can be recovered using Eq. (11),
0 0
i . e . , E3 ¼ E3 þ ðT þ 1Þ ¼ 145 þ ðT þ 1Þ ¼ 150 a n d E4 ¼ E4 þ ðT þ 1Þ ¼ 145 þ
0
ðT þ 1Þ ¼ 150 . Since d5 ¼ 1 < 2  T þ 1 , the secret message can be extracted by applying
0
0 jd j
Eq. (9). Further, the original pixel can be recovered using Eq. (10), i.e., E5 ¼ I5 þ 25 ¼

155 þ 12 ¼ 155: The extraction and recovery process of the embedded pixels
 0 0 0 0 0 0 0  0
E6 E7 E8 E9 E10 E11 and E12 is similar to that of E5 . Figure 5 shows the recovered
image.
 Multimed Tools Appl

Fig. 5 Recovered image

160 160 160 160
150 150 155 155
150 150 150 150
150 150 150 150

3.3 Overflow and underflow problems

The extreme pixel may generate an overflow or underflow problem when secret messages
are embedded. The maximum modification of pixels is T+1 according to Eqs. (2)–(5).
Therefore, the original pixel, ranged in [0, T] and [255−T, 255], may have an overflow or
underflow problem. Inspired by the method [25], our scheme modifies the pixels as T+1,
when the original pixel is smaller than T+1, to avoid an underflow problem. Moreover, if the
original pixel is larger than 255−(T+1), then the pixel will be modified as 255−(T+1).
Additionally, these modified pixels must be identified and recovered by recording their
location information and the last dlog2 T þ 1 þ 1e bits of the original pixel.
Suppose that the cover pixels are {1, 2, 0, 1, 2}, and threshold T is 0. Therefore,
maximum modification of the pixel is 1, and the third pixel “0” may incur an underflow
problem. To avoid this problem, the third pixel “0” is modified as “1”. Moreover, its location
information “3” and its last bit “0” are recorded and embedded into the cover image. When
users extract the location information “3” and the last bit “0” by using the extraction and
recovery algorithm, the third pixel “1” is modified as “0”.

4 Experimental results

To compare the performance of the proposed method and that of recently developed
methods, ten test images, sized 512×512, are used, as shown in Fig. 6. The peak signal-
to-noise ratio (PSNR) is applied to determine the similarity between the original image and
the stego image. The equation of PSNR is

2552
PSNR ¼ 10  log10 ; ð12Þ
MSE
where MSE is obtained by using the equation
X H X W h i2
1 0
MSE ¼ P ði ; j Þ  P ði ; j Þ : ð13Þ
H  W i ¼1 j ¼1

MSE is mean square error between the cover image and the stego image; H and W are the
0
height and width of the test image, respectively; and P(i, j) and P ði; jÞ represent the (i, j)th
pixel of the cover image and that of the stego image, respectively.
Figure 7(a) and (b) show the hiding capacity and image quality obtained by the proposed
method with different thresholds. We can see that the hiding capacities of all stego images
except Baboon are more than 185,940 bits. There are too many edges in Baboon, such that
the differences between the reference pixel and the embeddable pixel are too large to be
Multimed Tools Appl

Fig. 6 Test images

(a) Lena (b) Baboon

(c) F-16 (d) Boats

(e) Tiffany (f) Elaine

(g) Girl (h) Goldhill

(i) Sailboat (j) Zelda

 Multimed Tools Appl

(a) Capacity results

(b) Image quality

(c) Extra data for the underflow/overflow problem

Fig. 7 Ten test images with different thresholds
Multimed Tools Appl

Fig. 8 stego images

(a) 249,763 bits, 33.923 dB, and T = 14 (b) 185,940 bits, 28.392 dB, and T = 14

(c) 246,811 bits, 33.614 dB, and T = 14 (d) 233,479 bits, 31.534 dB, and T = 14

(e) 246,459 bits, 33.194 dB, and T = 14 (f) 228,528 bits, 30.106 dB, and T = 14

(g) 231,382 bits, 33.893 dB, and T = 14 (h) 243,259 bits, 32.132 dB, and T = 14

(i) 227,687 bits, 30.373 dB, and T = 14 (j) 253,662 bits, 35.089 dB, and T = 14
 Multimed Tools Appl

embedded. Figure 7(c) shows the size of our extra data. When threshold T is equal to 14, the
extra data is significantly increased. Therefore, the range of our threshold T is [0, 14].
The proposed method still has high image quality and hiding capacity in other images,
especially for a smooth image. Figure 8 shows the stego images produced by the proposed
method; the stego image qualities of all images are higher than 28 dB.
Figure 9(a)–(b) show the comparison results among the proposed method with some
recently developed methods by Ni et al. [17], Hong and Chen [10], Tseng and Hsieh [25],
Lee and Chen [13] and Tai et al. [20]. Experimental results indicate that the stego image
quality and embedding rate of the proposed method are higher than that of Tseng and Hsieh,
Lee and Chen, and Tai et al.’s proposed methods. This advantage is due to the number of
reference pixels in the proposed method being more than that of the other methods. In

Fig. 9 Comparison results among the proposed method and recently developed methods [10, 13, 17, 20, 25]
Multimed Tools Appl

(a) Cover image

(b) Stego image and T = 14

Fig. 10 Pixel histogram of Lena

addition, the large reference pixels can help to raise the accuracy of prediction. With high
prediction accuracy, the number of embeddable pixels is high and the number of shifting
pixels is low; that is why the proposed method can embed a large amount of secret data and
produce an excellent stego image.

Table 1 The lowest requirements of our method and that of the other methods

Requirements Our method [25] [10] [17]

Threshold One threshold One threshold Two thresholds No

Peak point No No Two peak points One peak point
Zero point No No No One zero point
Compression technique No No Yes No
 Multimed Tools Appl

Although the stego image quality of the proposed method is lower than that of Hong and
Chen’s method, maximum hiding capacity of the proposed method is higher than that of
Hong and Chen’s method [10]. In Hong and Chen’s method, the pixel in a complex block
remains constant. However, these pixels cannot embed secret data, thus limiting the max-
imum hiding capacity. The proposed method can thus embed more secret data than Hong
and Chen’s method. The hiding capacity of the proposed scheme is superior to that of Ni et
al.’s method [17], with the same stego image quality.
Figure 10 indicates that the pixel histogram of the stego image closely resembles
that of the cover image. Additionally, before embedding, the secret data can be
encrypted by a reliable cryptographic algorithm (i.e., RSA or Elgamal). Only persons
granted legal access with the correct key can extract and decode the secret informa-
tion. Therefore, the proposed scheme is secure.
Table 1 compares the lowest requirements of the proposed method with other
methods. The threshold and peak point are extra information that must be transmitted
over a secure channel. According to the comparison results, the amount of extra
information of the proposed method is less than that of the methods developed by
Hong and Chen [10] and Ni et al. [17]. Further, Hong and Chen’s scheme requires a
compression technique to compress side messages. The proposed method does not
require a compression technique.

5 Conclusions

This paper proposes a reversible hiding method based on the DE, histogram and bilinear
interpolation. The proposed method does not need to search for the peak points, nor does extra
data need to be compressed. Therefore, our implementation costs are lower than Hong and
Chen’s method. In the proposed method, the pixel (except for the reference pixel) in a smooth or
complex region can embed secret data. After some secret data are embedded, the remaining
secret data are embedded into the reference pixel. Consequently, the proposed method can
embed a large amount of secret data.
Since the number of our reference pixels is more than that of recently developed
methods, the prediction results are accurate and our performances (i.e., embedding rate
and image quality) are satisfactory. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed
method performs better than recently developed methods. In the future, the authors
will attempt to adopt the recently developed interpolation methods [19, 26] to yield a
better prediction. A precise prediction can greatly improve the hiding capacity and
stego image quality. Additionally, the human visual system (HVS) model in [2] will
be added into the proposed scheme to enhance imperceptibility for the stego image.
On the other hand, the proposed scheme will attempt to use the minimum/maximum
preserved overflow/underflow avoidance (MMPOUA) algorithm [27], which can avoid
overflow/underflow problems and enhance embedding rate and stego image quality.

References

1. Alattar AM (2004) Reversible watermark using the difference expansion of a generalized integer
transform. IEEE Trans Image Process 13(8):1147–1156
Multimed Tools Appl

2. Awrangjeb M, Kankanhalli MS (2005) Reversible watermarking using a perceptual model. J Electron

Imaging 14(1):1–8
3. Berson TA (1993) Differential cryptanalysis mod 232 with applications to MD5. Advances in Cryptology —
EUROCRYPT’ 92 658:71–80
4. Celik MU, Sharma G, Tekalp AM, Saber E (2005) Lossless generalized-LSB data embedding. IEEE Trans
Image Process 14(2):253–266
5. Chan YK, Chen WT, Yu SS, Ho YA, Tsai CS, Chu YP (2009) A HDWT-based reversible data hiding
method. J Syst Softw 82(3):411–421
6. Chan CK, Cheng LM (2004) Hiding data in images by simple LSB substitution. Pattern Recogn 37
(3):469–474
7. Chang CC, Huang YH, Tsai HY, Qin C (2012) Prediction-based reversible data hiding using the
difference of neighboring pixels. Int J Electron Commun (AEÜ) 66(9):758–766
8. Chu YH, Chang S (1999) Dynamical cryptography based on synchronized chaotic systems. IEE Electron
Lett 35(12):974–975
9. Highland HJ (1997) Data encryption: a non-mathematical approach. Comput Secur 16(5):369–
386
10. Hong W, Chen TS (2011) Reversible data embedding for high quality images using interpolation and
reference pixel distribution mechanism. J Vis Commun Image Represent 22(2):131–140
11. Hu Y, Lee HK, Li J (2009) DE-based reversible data hiding with improved overflow location map. IEEE
Trans Circ Syst Video Technol 19(2):250–260
12. Kieu TD, Chang CC (2011) A steganographic scheme by fully exploiting modification directions. Expert
Syst Appl 38:10648–10657
13. Lee CF, Chen HL, Tso HK (2010) Embedding capacity raising in reversible data hiding based on
prediction of difference expansion. J Syst Softw 83(10):1864–1872
14. Li YC, Yeh CM, Chang CC (2009) Data hiding based on the similarity between neighboring pixels with
reversibility. Digit Signal Proc 20(4):1116–1128
15. Lin CC (2011) An information hiding scheme with minimal image distortion. Comput Stand Interfaces 33
(5):477–484
16. Liu YC, Wu HC, Yu SS (2011) Adaptive DE-based reversible steganographic technique using bilinear
interpolation and simplified location map. Multimed Tools Appl 52(2–3):263–276
17. Ni Z, Shi YQ, Ansari N, Su W (2006) Reversible data hiding. IEEE Trans Circ Syst Video Technol 16
(3):354–362
18. Petitcolas FAP, Anderson RJ, Kuhn MG (1999) Information hiding - a survey. Proc IEEE 87(7):1062–
1078
19. Qin C, Wang S, Zhang X (2012) Simultaneous inpainting for image structure and texture using aniso-
tropic heat transfer model. Multimed Tools Appl 56(3):469–483
20. Tai WL, Yeh CM, Chang CC (2009) Reversible data hiding based on histogram modification of pixel
differences. IEEE Trans Circ Syst Video Technol 19(6):906–910
21. Thodi DM, Rodriguez JJ (2004) Prediction-error based reversible watermarking. Proc 2004 Int Conf
Image Process 3:1549–1552
22. Thodi DM, Rodriguez JJ (2007) Expansion embedding techniques for reversible watermarking. IEEE
Trans Image Process 16(3):721–730
23. Tian J (2011) Reversible data embedding using a difference expansion. IEEE Trans Circ Syst Video
Technol 13(8):890–896
24. Tsai P, Hu YC, Yeh HL (2009) Reversible image hiding scheme using predictive coding and histogram
shifting. Signal Process 89(6):1129–1143
25. Tseng HW, Hsieh CP (2009) Prediction-based reversible data hiding. Inform Sci 179(14):2460–2469
26. Wu HT, Huang J (2012) Reversible image watermarking on prediction errors by efficient histogram
modification. Signal Process 92(12):3000–3009
27. Yang CY, Hu WC (2011) High-performance reversible data hiding with overflow/underflow avoidance.
ETRI J 33(4):580–588
28. Yang HW, Hwang KF, Liao IE (2009) Reversible data hiding based on interleaving max-min difference
histogram. Proceedings of the 2009 Joint Conferences on Pervasive Computing 823–828. doi: 10.1109/
JCPC.2009.5420071
29. Yang CH, Weng CY, Tso HK, Wang SJ (2011) A data hiding scheme using the varieties of pixel-value
differencing in multimedia images. J Syst Softw 84(4):669–678
30. Zhang X, Wang S (2006) Efficient steganographic embedding by exploiting modification direction. IEEE
Commun Lett 10(11):781–783
31. Zhao ZF, Luo H, Lu ZM, Pan JS (2011) Reversible data hiding based on multilevel histogram modifi-
cation and sequential recovery. Int J Electron Commun (AEÜ) 65(10):814–826
 Multimed Tools Appl

Tzu-Chuen Lu received the B.M. degree (1999) and MSIM degree (2001) in Information Management from
Chaoyang University of Technology, Taiwan. She received her Ph.D. degree (2006) in Computer Science and
Information Engineering from National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan. Her current title is Associate
Professor with the Department of Information Management at Chaoyang University of Technology.

Chin-Chen Chang received his Ph.D. degree in computer engineering from National Chiao Tung University. His
first degree is Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics and master degree is Master of Science in computer
and decision sciences. Both were awarded in National Tsing Hua University. Dr. Chang served in National Chung
Cheng University from 1989 to 2005. His current title is Chair Professor in Department of Information
Engineering and Computer Science, Feng Chia University, from Feb. 2005. Prior to joining Feng Chia University,
Professor Chang was an associate professor in Chiao Tung University, professor in National Chung Hsing
University, chair professor in National Chung Cheng University. He had also been Visiting Researcher and
Visiting Scientist to Tokyo University and Kyoto University, Japan. During his service in Chung Cheng, Professor
Chang served as Chairman of the Institute of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Dean of College of
Engineering, Provost and then Acting President of Chung Cheng University and Director of Advisory Office in
Ministry of Education, Taiwan. Professor Chang has won many research awards and honorary positions by and in
prestigious organizations both nationally and internationally. He is currently a Fellow of IEEE and a Fellow of
IEE, UK. And since his early years of career development, he consecutively won Outstanding Talent in
Information Sciences of the R. O. C., AceR Dragon Award of the Ten Most Outstanding Talents, Outstanding
Scholar Award of the R. O. C., Outstanding Engineering Professor Award of the R. O. C., Distinguished Research
Awards of National Science Council of the R. O. C., Top Fifteen Scholars in Systems and Software Engineering of
the Journal of Systems and Software, and so on. On numerous occasions, he was invited to serve as Visiting
Professor, Chair Professor, Honorary Professor, Honorary Director, Honorary Chairman, Distinguished Alumnus,
Distinguished Researcher, Research Fellow by universities and research institutes. His current research interests
include database design, computer cryptography, image compression and data structures.
Multimed Tools Appl

Ying-Hsuan Huang received the MS degree in Information Management from Chaoyang University of
Technology, Taiwan. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science and Engineering from
National Chung Hsing University. His research interests include data hiding, secret sharing and image
processing.