Enhance Embedding Capacity of Generalized Exploiting Modification Directions in Data Hiding

Data hiding is a useful technology to protect secret data through the Internet. Exploiting modification direction (EMD)-based data hiding uses a group of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n$ </tex-math></inline-formula> cover-pixels to embed secret data. It achieves good image quality and high security level of resisting RS detection. However, the embedding capacity of EMD decreases fast when <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n$ </tex-math></inline-formula> increases. In 2013, a Generalized EMD (GEMD) was proposed to improve the embedding capacity of EMD, which is always more than 1 bpp (bits per pixel), and keeps the good stego-image quality. In this paper, we propose an enhanced GEMD by dividing a group of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n$ </tex-math></inline-formula> cover-pixels into multiple groups. By this method, the embedding capacity can be further improved from GEMD. Our scheme maintains the good image quality and can resist the RS detection as well.