Reversible Data Hiding in JPEG Images with Multi-objective Optimization
This addresses the need for improved data hiding in JPEG images for applications like secure communication, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing RDH methods.
The paper tackles the problem of reversible data hiding in JPEG images by proposing a scheme that balances both image quality and file size expansion using multi-objective optimization, achieving better performance compared to state-of-the-art methods.
Among various methods of reversible data hiding (RDH) in JPEG images, the consideration in designing is only the image quality, but the image quality and the file size expansion are equally important in JPEG images. Based on this situation, we propose a RDH scheme in JPEG images considering both the image quality and the file size expansion while designing the algorithm. The multi-objective optimization strategy is utilized to realize the balance of the two objectives. Specifically, the cover is divided into several non-overlapping signals firstly, and after that, the embedding costs of signals are calculated using the knowledge of the JPEG compression. Next, the optimized combination of signals for embedding data is gained by the multi-objective optimization. Experimental results show the better performance of our proposed RDH compared with state-of-the-art RDH in JPEG images.