A module-based LSB substitution method with lossless secret data compression

All the various data hiding methods can be simply divided into two types: (1) the extracted important data are lossy, (2) the extracted important data are lossless. The proposed method belongs to the second type. In this paper, a module-based substitution method with lossless secret data compression function is used for concealing smoother area of secret image by modifying fewer pixels in the generated stego-image. Compared with the previous data hiding methods that extract lossless data, the generated stego-image by the proposed method is always with better quality, unless the hidden image is with very strong randomness.

Research Highlights
► A lossless secret data compression function is designed for further hiding.
► Concealing smoother area of secret image will modify fewer pixels of cover image.
► Stego-image is better in quality, unless secret image is with strong randomness.
► Very-low computation complexity (O (image size)) processes in decoding.