Effect of Secret Image Transformation on the Steganography Process

Abstract

Steganography is the art of hiding information in something else. It is favorable over encryption because encryption only hides the meaning of the information; whereas steganography hides the existence of the information. The existence of a hidden image decreases Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and increases Mean Square Error (MSE) values of the stego image. We propose an approach to improve PSNR and MSE values in stego images. In this method a transformation is applied to the secret image, concealed within another image, before embedding into the cover image. The effect of the transformation is tested with Least Significant Bit (LSB) insertion and Discrete Cosine Transformation (DCT) techniques. MSE and PSNR are calculated for both techniques with and without transformation. Results show a better MSE and PSNR values when a transformation is applied for LSB technique but no significant difference was shown in DCT technique.