High capacity reversible hiding scheme based on interpolation, difference expansion, and histogram shifting

Difference expansion and histogram shifting methods are two popular hiding strategies that have been widely used in many researches. For example, Hong and Chen developed a reversible hiding method based on interpolation and histogram shifting. The image quality of their scheme is exceptional; however, their scheme needs to keep and transmit two peak points for secret data extraction and pixel recovering. Moreover, the reference pixels in their scheme cannot be used to embed secret data that will decrease the hiding capacity. Therefore, this paper shall propose a reversible hiding method to enhance their scheme. The proposed method applies the difference expansion, histogram shifting and interpolation strategies to conceal secret data in the reference pixels for increasing the hiding payload. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method performs better in terms of hiding capacity than recently developed methods.