A counter-embedding IPVO based reversible data hiding technique

Improved pixel value ordering utilizes two embedding procedures. These are the maximum and minimum embedding procedures. The maximum embedding procedure modifies a pixel by either 0 or 1, while the minimum embedding procedure modifies a pixel by either 0 or - 1. Our counter-embedding strategy modifies a corner pixel using both embedding procedures. This strategy exploits the opposing distortions of each embedding procedure and can embed up to 2 secret bits into a single pixel. The proposed scheme consists of two stages. The first stage applies the counter-embedding strategy to two corner pixels of an input block. Thus, it can conceal up to four bits per block. However, this stage generates some auxiliary information which is embedded in the second stage using the traditional IPVO. The second stage minimizes distortions by only modifying pixels that the first stage ignored. Our experimental results confirm that the proposed scheme improves the visual quality of the recent related works. On average, for embedding capacities of 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, and 40,000 bits, it increases the visual quality by at least 1.2 dB.