Reversible data hiding scheme using reference pixel and multi-layer embedding

This paper presents a lossless data hiding scheme. The proposed scheme is based on the pixel difference histogram shifting to spare space for data hiding. Pixel differences are generated between a reference pixel and its neighbors in a pre-assigned block. After the difference histogram shifting, a large number of data can be embedded into the cover image, and multi-layer embedding is used to improve the hiding capacity. Different from previous works based on histogram shifting the proposed scheme can extract the hidden data and recover the exact original cover image with no extra information except the length of hidden data and the stego-image itself. Experimental results show that the average pure payload among eight commonly used grayscale images is up to 1.08 bits per pixel (bpp) while keeping low distortion. (C) 2011 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.