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ISBN-13: 978-1535448697

Proceedings of ICRMET-2016

DESIGN OF IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHY USING HAAR


DWT AND AVERAGE ALPHA BLENDING
TECHNIQUES
Priyanjali N K1, Y. Manjula2, M.Z. Kurian3
PG Student (VLSI and ES) Dept. of Electronics & Communication Engineering, Sri Siddhartha Institute of Technology,
Tumakuru, Karnataka, India.
Assistant Professor,Dept. of Electronics & Communication Engineering, Sri Siddhartha Institute Of technology, Tumakuru,
Karnataka, India.
HOD, Dept. of Electronics & Communication Engineering, Sri Siddhartha Institute of Technology, Tumakuru, Karnataka, India

Abstract The security of the secret information


is very important. If secrecy of the data transmitted is not
done the secret information can be retrieved from the
unauthorized users, and it can be misused. To avoid this
various encryption schemes have been proposed. In this
paper, image steganography using Haar-discrete wavelet
transform is proposed. The DWT (Haar) is used to
decompose the secret and the cover images into four
bands i.e, LL, LH, HL and HH. Later both the LL-bands
of the secret and the cover images are blended using the
average alpha blending technique. As it requires, adders
and subtractors Haar DWT is chosen over other methods
such as DCT, DFT and IDFT, which reduces the hardware
requirement. The Haar DWT is used because it uses less
hardware, area consumption and increased computational
speed. The average alpha blending technique is used for
blending both the LL-Bands of cover and secret images
according to the alpha value. Where alpha represents, the
percentage of the pixel values considered. The average
alpha blending is used for both the steganography and
digital watermarking techniques. Embedding secret
information inside images requires the intensive
computations, and therefore, designing steganography in
hardware speeds up the steganography. The design
utilizes the Spartan-6 FPGA and MATLAB Simulink
software to perform the steganography steps. The design
balances the tradeoffs such as imperceptibility, quality
and capacity.

Steganography works in two stages, embedding and then


extracting. During the embedding stage, a key is used to
embed a message in a cover medium resulting in a stegoobject. The stego-object is then transmitted along public
channels to its destination. When the stego-object is
received, the embedded message is extracted from stegoobject using the known stego-key. Steganalysis is the art
of discovering and rendering useless such covert message.
Steg analysis contains two main issues: Detection and
Distortion.
Image is basically the 2-Dimensional, which
consists of pixels. Usually the images are of two types
gray scale images and normal images.
In steganography two types of images are going
to be used they are, payload image and the carrier image.
The payload image is the one which is also called as the
secret file, which has to be transmitted over the carrier
image. The payload image along with the carrier image is
called stego file. The secret data is hidden in the cover
image such that its invisible to the illegal users.
Images are encrypted to ensure the security of the
data. The encryption has been used in wide application
such as internet banking, internet communication,
multimedia applications, medical imaging, telemedicine
and military communication etc. The signature of the user
can be forgered in the net-banking, where as password of
the user can be hacked in the internet communication this
can be avoided by securing the user data by efficient
image steganography method in conjunction with
cryptography.
In real time data transmission for image video
requires security to maintain secrecy .This requires to hide
the identity of the person in banking transaction where
cloud servers play the major role. The data or the
information requires encryption for big data analytics.
This motivates the use of advanced secured encryptions

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of steganography is to hide the


existence of a message from a third party Cryptography is
widely used with steganography. A major drawback of
cryptography is that the existence of the data is not
hidden. Steganography hides the existence of the data.

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IAETSD 2016

ISBN-13: 978-1535448697

Proceedings of ICRMET-2016

and improve the error rate in steganography. In existing


steganography algorithm the use of spatial domains and
frequency domain individually yields in less accuracy and
also the originating decrypted image is distorted. So there
is a need for improvement. "Watermarking" is the
process of hiding digital information in a carrier signal;
the hidden information should, but does not need to
contain a relation to the carrier signal. Watermarking
techniques are of two types and they are visible
watermarking and invisible watermarking. In the visible
watermarking technique the digital information which is
hided into the carrier image is visible but in invisible
watermarking technique its invisible. Digital watermarks
may be used to verify the authenticity or integrity of the
carrier signal or to show the identity of its owners. Digital
watermarking is the act of hiding a message related to a
digital signal (i.e. an image, song, and video) within the
signal itself.
The combination of spatial and frequency domain
can be used to improve the error rate with better PSNR
value. The scope of the lies with the using of different
combinations of spatial and frequency domain and also
modifying the fusion based embed algorithm to improve
the performance of the algorithm.

data is made complex. The varying mode is considered in


3 cases and they are low embedding, median embedding
and high embedding capacity requirements. In the fixed
mode the specified range is defined for the capacity of the
required data.
Dr. Mahesh kumar et al,[4] proposed the method
of hiding the large amount of the data using DWT and
IDWT transformations technique .The magnitude of the
DWT coefficients of three sub-bands are altered i.e, HH,
HL and LH of the cover image based on that the secret
data is hided into the cover image.
SalehSaraireh et al, [5] proposed filter bank
cipher technique which is used to encrypt the secret
message to provide the high security, scalability and
speed. By modifying the wavelet coefficients of cover
image the encrypted message is hided and this technique
is called DWT. Performance is evaluated by the PSNR
and histogram analysis.
Hemalta S et al,[6] proposed steganography
technique to hide both the images and key in the cover
image by DWT[Discrete wavelet transform] and IWT
[Inverse wavelet transform].We cannot visualize any
difference between stego and cover image. Higher PSNR
value can be obtained for both the images and extracted
secret image.
R.Niveditha et al, [7] proposed the new method
were the combination of both cryptography and
steganography are used. The encrypted data is hidden into
the media. The image is secured by using the DES
algorithm. The LSB technique is used to encrypt the
image and its also hidden into the image. By using the
same key as in DES algorithm the decryption is done.
Mr. Madhusudhan Mishra et al, [8]proposed
encryption using RAS algorithm with 1024bits key size
and F5 steganographic technique is used to embed the
data into the DCT coefficients of the cover image.
R.Gayathri et al, [9] proposed the four phases for
the secure data communication and they are
steganography technique where the zig- zag pattern is
used to provide the more secure data communication,
visual cryptographic encryption where the secret data is
divided into several shares and each share is hided into
the different cover images , hiding the shares using the
digital watermarking, visual cryptographic decryption
where the stacking of the different secret images are done
to get back the original secret data which is hided into the
different cover images.

II.LITERATUIRE SURVEY
Hsien chu et al,[1] proposed the use of least
significant bit (LSB) method and pixel value differencing
(PVD)method.Secret data can be hided in to the cover
image i.e. in the smooth area where the colour quality of
the pixel is high by the LSB method. ThePVD method is
used in the edged area. In the PVD method the difference
value of the two consecutive pixels are taken. If the
difference value is small then it can be placed in smooth
area and if difference value is large then its placed on the
edge area.
Aartidalvi et al, [2] proposed the RGB colour
phases of cover image DWT and SWT coefficients of
cover images and the secret images are extended. Both the
coefficient values are fused into the single image by
wavelet based fusion technique. By obtaining the
ISWT/IDWT of the fused image the stego image is
obtained. For the embedding process the different
combinations of DWT and SWT are used (DWTDWT,DWT-SWT,SWT-SWT,SWT-SWT).In
the
extraction process the combination of transform used
must be same.
Po-yuehchen et al, [3] proposed the embedding
algorithm which is divided into two modes and, the
varying mode and fixed mode. In varying mode
prediction of the capacity range of embedding the secret

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IAETSD 2016

ISBN-13: 978-1535448697

Proceedings of ICRMET-2016

The image is decomposed into four subbands and they are LL, LH, HL and HH. If the
decomposition of image is done more and more
the security of the secret data is maintained in
improved manner. LL-band is the approximation
band, LH-band is the horizontal band, HL-band is
the vertical band and HH-band is the diagonal
band, as shown in the Fig 2.

III.PROPOSED METHOD

Fig.2: First and Second Level Decomposition

Haar DWT Scheme


2-dimensional Haar DWT consists of two
operation and they are described as follows:
Operation 1
1. In the horizontal direction the pixels are scanned.
2. The addition and subtraction operations are
performed on the neighbouring pixels.
3. On the left the sum is stored whereas on the right
side the difference is stored.
4. This operation is continued until all the rows are
processed.
5. Low frequency part is denoted by the pixel sum
whereas the high frequency is denoted by pixel
difference of the original image as shown in the
Fig 3.

Fig.1: Block Diagram of Proposed Steganography

Fig.1 Shows the block diagram of the proposed


steganography.
1. Resizing and RGB to intensity conversion
In this section different sizes of images are converted
into uniform size (256x256) by the resizing block with the
help of mean based algorithm .To reduce the design
complexity color image is converted into gray image is
converted into gray image. Also Gaussian filter is used in
this section to remove noises present in input images.
2. Discrete Wavelet Transform
Discrete Wavelet Transform
To convert an image from time or spatial domain
to frequency domain we use DWT technique.
Discrete wavelet transform is a frequency domain
technique where cover image is transformed to
frequency domain.

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Fig.3: Scanning of pixels from left to right


Operation 2
1. In the vertical direction the pixels are scanned
from top to the bottom.

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IAETSD 2016

ISBN-13: 978-1535448697

Proceedings of ICRMET-2016
At the receiver, the encrypted image is subjected to the
2D-DWT (Haar).The four bands i.e,LL, LH,HL and HH are
obtained. The LL Band is subjected to the inverse average alpha
blending. The output of the inverse average alpha blending
block and the remaining bands LH, HL and HH are subjected
to the 2D-IDWT (Haar) to obtain the secret image. As shown
in the Fig 3.1.

2. Addition and subtraction


operations are
performed on the neighbouring pixel
3. At the top sum is stored and at the bottom the
difference is stored.
4. This operation is continued until the entire
columns are processed.
5. Lastly we are obtained with the four sub-bands
which are denoted as LL, HL, LH and HH.
6. The low frequency portion is the LL sub-band
and is similar to that of the original image as
shown in the Fig 4.

IV.

SIMULATION RESULTS

The simulation is carried out on the simulink


model which is designed using the MATLAB. Here the
simulink model is given with the two input images i.e,
Cover image and secret images .The output image is
recovered image
INPUT IMAGES
Cover image
: Pepper
Type of cover image
: bmp
Size of cover image
: 256*256

Fig.4: Scanning of pixels from top to bottom.


Here as Haar DWT is of more advantageous as
compared to lift DWT, Haar DWT is used to decompose
the input images i.e, cover and the secret images. After
decomposition we will obtain the four bands and they are
LL, LH, HL and HH bands.
Later on the LL bands of both the cover and secret
images are blended by using average alpha blending
technique. Whereas the remaining bands of the secret
image is discarded as it contains less information high
frequency components.
3. Average blending technique

Fig.5: Cover image: Pepper.bmp

Secret image
: Lenna
Type of secret image : png
Size of secret image
: 256*256
Secret image is shown in Fig 6.2

The LSB technique and mixed fractional


techniques are less preferred as compared to the average
alpha blending technique because it is less robust, ease of
extraction, LSB insertion is almost useless for the digital
watermarking and any kind of the picture transformation
like blurring or other effects usually destroys the hidden
data. In the mixed fraction technique after the blending
operation it may give some decimal numbers which have
to be converted to the discrete values and more hardware
requirements are needed.

Fig.6: Secret image: Lenna.png

After the average alpha blending technique, the


2D-IDWT (Haar) is applied. The encrypted image is
obtained and is transmitted along the communication
channel.
4. Receiver

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STEGO IMAGE: After embedding LL band of the secret


image in to the cover image by average blending
technique the stegano image is obtained as shown in the
Fig 7.

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IAETSD 2016

ISBN-13: 978-1535448697

Proceedings of ICRMET-2016

PSNR of cover and stego


images
67.12
67.5
67
66.5
66
65.5
65
64.5
64
63.5

Fig.7: Stegano image


Hardware calculations
Number of CLBs: 110 out of 54576
Number of LUTs: 88 out of 27288
Delay
: 4.984ns
Area utilization using CLBs :(110/54576)*100=
0.2015%
5. Speed of the architecture :
f =1/T=1/(4.984ns) =200MHZ
a) Software simulation results

65.17

PSNR of cover
and stego
images

64.84

1.
2.
3.
4.

65.1765.47

2. Graphical representation of PSNR of


secret and stego images

PSNR of secret and stego


images
68.05

Table1: Simulated PSNR values of proposed architecture


for standard images.

66.36

67.19
70
68
66

63.74
61.45

64
62

PSNR of secret
and stego images

60
58
1

1. Graphical representation of PSNR of


cover image and stego images

Table2: Comparison of simulated PSNR values with the


existing papers

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44

IAETSD 2016

ISBN-13: 978-1535448697

Proceedings of ICRMET-2016

Since, Haar DWT has been implemented which


has better computational speed and requires less hardware
and area, this paper has become more significant. Average
alpha blending can be used on both the steganography and
digital watermarking techniques.
As the steganography is designed in Spartan-6
FPGA and MATLAB Simulink, the steganography speed
is increased. Where, the secret information is embedded
inside the image requires the intensive computations

therefore, speeds up the steganography. The design


utilizes the Spartan-6 FPGA and MATLAB
Simulink software to perform the steganography
steps. The design balances the trade-offs such as
imperceptibility, quality and capacity.
REFERENCES
3. Graphical represenatation of comparision
between the existing papers and the
proposed method

V.

[1]. Wu, H.-C.; Wu, N.-I.; Tsai, C.-S.; Hwang, M.-S ,


Image steganography scheme based on pixel-value
differencing and LSB replacement methods, Vision,
Image and Signal Processing, IEE Proceedings Volume 152, Issue 5, 7 Oct. 2005.
[2]. Aarti Dalvi1, R. S. Kamathe, Color image
steganography by using dual wavelet transform 2014
[3]. Po-Yueh Chen* and Hung-Ju Lin, A DWT Based
Approach for Image Steganography March 2006
[4]. Dr.Maheshkumar
,Muneshyadav
,Image
steganography using frequency domain Sept 2014
[5]. Salehsaraireh , A secured data communication system
using cryptography and steganography, may 2013..
[6]. Hemalatha,U D Acharya,RenukaA,Priya R.Kamath,
A secure color image steganography in transform
domain March 2013.
[7]. R.Niveditha, Dr.T.Meyyappan,Image security using
steganography and cryptographic techniques2012.
[8]. Mr. MadhusudhanMishra, Mr. GangadharTiwari,
Mr.Arun Kumar Yadav Secret Communication using
Public key Steganography March 2015.
[9]. R. Gayathri, Dr. V. NagarajanSecure data hiding using
Steganographic technique with Visual Cryptography
and Watermarking Scheme May 2014.

CONCLUSION

In this paper the Haar DWT has been


implemented, this scheme is used to obtain the four band
coefficients and later average blending steganography
technique is implemented by blending both the cover and
the secret message in the appropriate manner to get better
PSNR values.
The block diagrams of proposed method are
discussed and implemented. The PSNR values are
calculated for the different standard images and real time
images. Also the better comparison results on PSNR
values with the existing techniques enhanced the
importance of the project work

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