Steganography Based on Pixel Intensity Value Decomposition

Abstract: This paper focuses on steganography based on pixel intensity value decomposition. A number of existing schemes such as binary, Fibonacci, Prime, Natural, Lucas, and Catalan-Fibonacci (CF) are evaluated in terms of payload capacity and stego quality. A new technique based on a specific representation is used to decompose pixel intensity values into 16 (virtual) bit-planes suitable for embedding purposes. The new decomposition scheme has a desirable property whereby the sum of all bit-planes does not exceed the maximum pixel intensity value, i.e. 255. Experimental results demonstrate that the new decomposition scheme offers a better compromise between payload capacity and stego quality than other existing decomposition schemes used for embedding messages. However, embedding in the 6th bit-plane onwards, the proposed scheme offers better stego quality. In general, the new decomposition technique has less effect in terms of quality on pixel value when compared to most existing pixel intensity value decomposition techniques when embedding messages in higher bit-planes.