A New Optimization Strategy for Solving the Fall-Off Boundary Value Problem in Pixel-Value Di®erencing Steganography

Abstract

In Digital Image Steganography, Pixel-Value Di®erencing (PVD) methods use the di®erence between neighboring pixel values to determine the amount of data bits to be inserted. The main advantage of these methods is the size of input data that an image can hold. However, the fall- o® boundary problem and the fall in error problem are persistent in many PVD steganographic methods. This results in an incorrect output image. To ¯x these issues, usually the pixel values are either somehow adjusted or simply not considered to carry part of the input data. In this paper, we enhance the Tri-way Pixel-Value Di®erencing method by ¯nding an optimal pixel value for each pixel pair such that it carries the maximum input data possible without ignoring any pair and without yielding incorrect pixel values.