Data hiding in grayscale images by dynamic programming based on a human visual model

A new method for data hiding in grayscale images based on a human vision model with distortion-minimizing capabilities is proposed for covert communication. Each of the eight bit planes of an input grayscale image is viewed as a binary image, into which message data are embedded horizontally. To minimize the image distortion, two optimization techniques, namely, block pattern coding and dynamic programming, are proposed. Furthermore, the proposed method can predict the PSNR value of the resulting image according to the size of the data to be embedded before the embedding process starts. Experimental results show good performances of the proposed method.