Secret image sharing scheme with encrypted shadow images using optimal homomorphic encryption technique

Secret Image Sharing (SIS) scheme is to encrypt a secret image into 'n' specious shadows. It is unable to reveal any data on the secret image if at least one of the shadows is not achieved. In this paper, wavelet-based secret image sharing scheme is proposed with encrypted shadow images using optimal Homomorphic Encryption (HE) technique. Initially, Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) is applied on the secret image to produce sub bands. From this process, multiple shadows are created, encrypted and decrypted for each shadow. The encrypted shadow can be recovered just by choosing some subset of these 'n' shadows that makes transparent and stack over each other. To improve the shadow security, each shadow is encrypted and decrypted using HE technique. For the concern on image quality, the new Oppositional based Harmony Search (OHS) algorithm was utilized to generate the optimal key. From the analysis, it shows that the proposed scheme provide greater security compared to other existing schemes.