A novel image steganography scheme with high embedding capacity and tunable visual image quality based on a genetic algorithm

•We propose genetic algorithm-based image steganography approach in spatial domain.•The stego image quality of the proposed method is tunable.•Our scheme is simple, and feasible for adaptive steganographic applications.•Obtained results are satisfactory from the aspect of PSNR and capacity.

Steganography is knowledge and art of hiding secret data into information which is largely used in information security systems. Various methods have been proposed in the literature which most of them are not capable of both preventing visual degradation and providing a large embedding capacity. In this paper, we propose a tunable visual image quality and data lossless method in spatial domain based on a genetic algorithm (GA). The main idea of the proposed technique is modeling the steganography problem as a search and optimization problem. Experimental results, in comparison with other currently popular steganography techniques, demonstrate that the proposed algorithm not only achieves high embedding capacity but also enhances the PSNR of the stego image.