Minimum entropy and histogram-pair based JPEG image reversible data hiding

In this paper, based on the block entropy in the spatial domain obtained by summing the squares of all AC coefficients of each 8 x 8 block, a reversible data hiding (RDH) scheme for JPEG images is presented which selects the DCT blocks with minimum entropy for RDH. This scheme applies Parseval theorem and entropy principle to achieve the minimum entropy in the spatial domain. It embeds data into the DCT coefficients based on a histogram-pair RDH scheme using histogram shifting. Moreover, four thresholds including the embedding amplitude threshold, the fluctuation threshold, the lower frequency threshold and the higher frequency threshold, are utilized and adjusted to achieve optimized embedding performance. In particular, the proposed scheme does not embed data into zero-valued DCT coefficients, and can obtain optimal PSNR with relatively small file-size increase. Experimental results have demonstrated that, compared with the prior arts, the quality of proposed marked image is higher, and the file-size increase after RDH is less as well. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.