An Improved Image Steganography Technique using Pixel Pair Matching driven by Spatial Frequency and Luminance Masking

Abstract: This paper proposes a new improved steganographic technique based on pixel pair matching which is driven by spatial frequency and luminance masking. The cover image is scanned using a spatial frequency and luminance mask and the result is used as the candidate region to perform data hiding using pixel pair matching. The basic idea of pixel pair matching (PPM) is to use the value of a pixel pair as a reference coordinate, and search a coordinate in the neighbourhood set of this pixel pair according to a given message digit. The pixel pair is then replaced by the searched coordinate to conceal the digit. In contrast to the existing methods based on PPM, the masking driven approach has lower distortion for various payloads. Experimental results reveal that the proposed method provides better performance than the existing techniques and also is secure under some well-known steganalysis techniques.

Keywords: Image steganography, LSB encoding, Adaptive pixel pair matching, masking, payload, cover image, stego- image, security.