Lossless data hiding in the spatial domain for high quality images

A lossless data embedding method that inserts data in images in the spatial domain is proposed in this paper. Though a lossless data embedding method once distorts an original image to embed data into the image, the method restores the original image as well as extracts hidden data from the image in which the data are embedded. To guarantee the losslessness of data embedding, all pixel values after embedding must be in the dynamic range of pixels. Because the proposed method modifies some pixels to embed data and leaves other pixels as their original values in the spatial domain, it can easily keep all pixel values after embedding in the dynamic range of pixels. Thus, both the capacity and the image quality of generated images are simultaneously improved. Moreover, the proposed method uses only one parameter based on the statistics of pixel blocks to embed and extract data. By using this parameter, this method does not require any reference images to extract embedded data nor any memorization of the positions of pixels in which data are hidden to extract embedded data. In addition, the proposed method can control the capacity for hidden data and the quality of images conveying hidden data by controlling the only one parameter. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed method; in particular, it offers images with superior image quality to conventional methods.