Reversible data hiding using invariant pixel-value-ordering and prediction-error expansion

•A high fidelity reversible image data hiding scheme is proposed.•The reversibility is guaranteed by keeping pixel-value-ordering of each image block invariant after embedding.•The maximum-valued (or minimum-valued) pixels in a block are taken as a unit to embed data.•A mechanism of advisable payload partition and pixel-block-selection is adopted to optimize the embedding performance.

Recently, Li et al. proposed a reversible data hiding (RDH) method based on pixel-value-ordering (PVO) and prediction-error expansion. In their method, the maximum and the minimum of a pixel block are predicted and modified to embed data, and the reversibility is guaranteed by keeping PVO of each block invariant after embedding. In this paper, a novel RDH method is proposed by extending Li et al.׳s work. Instead of considering only a single pixel with maximum (or minimum) value of a block, all maximum-valued (or minimum-valued) pixels are taken as a unit to embed data. Specifically, the maximum-valued (or minimum-valued) pixels are first predicted and then modified together such that they are either unchanged or increased by 1 (or decreased by 1) in value at the same time. Comparing our method with Li et al.׳s, more blocks suitable for RDH are utilized and image redundancy is better exploited. Moreover, a mechanism of advisable payload partition and pixel-block-selection is adopted to optimize the embedding performance in terms of capacity-distortion behavior. Experimental results verify that our method outperforms Li et al.׳s and some other state-of-the-art works.