ENHANCING SECURITY IN IMAGE
STEGANOGRAPHY USING EDGE
DETECTION METHOD
Renuka B, Roushan A K, Shanti Priya K
Kings Engineering College, Anna university, IT
Abstract- We consider an edge detection method to find
the edge of the image and then hide our secret message
using LSBMR technique. Cover image is cropped and
then rotated, secret message is then embedded in the
rotated image. The process is reversed in order to place
the cropped image in its original position; now the stego
image looks exactly same as the cover image. Thus our
work is highly secure.
Keywords- Steganography, cover image, stego image,
LSBMR, Edge detection method.
INTRODUCTION
According to many different methods for
communication now-a-days, and as a result of
spreading the Internet all around the world,
motivation of hiding secret message in different
multimedia and secure communication via Internet is
increased. Steganography is one of the most popular
ways for secret communication which differs
inherently with cryptography. In both methods, secret
message is transformed between two groups,
transmitter and receiver. However, the main purpose
in cryptography is to make massage concept
unintelligible. So eavesdroppers could not guess its
concept, while steganography aims to hide secret
message and secret communication. In steganography
secret message can be hidden in voice, video, text
and image.
Images that are used for inserting and hiding
secure data are called ‘cover image’ and the image
where secret bits are inserted is called ‘stego image’.
Edges characterize boundaries and are
therefore a problem of fundamental importance in
image processing. Edges in images are areas with
strong intensity contrasts – a jump in intensity from
one pixel to the next. Edge detecting an
image significantly reduces the amount of data and
filters out useless information, while preserving the
important structural properties in an image.
1
The following are the criteria of the edge
detection method. The first and most obvious is low
error rate. It is important that edges occurring in
images should not to be missed and that there be NO
responses to non-edges. The second criterion is that
the edge points be well localized. In other words, the
distance between the edge pixels as found by the
detector and the actual edge is to be at a minimum. A
third criterion is to have only one response to a single
edge. This was implemented because the first 2 were
not substantial enough to completely eliminate the
possibility of multiple responses to an edge.
In Practice, two properties, undetectability
and embedding capacity, should be carefully
considered when designing a Steganographic
algorithm. Usually, the larger payload embedded in a
cover, the more detectable artifacts would be
introduced into the stego. In many applications, the
most important requirement for Steganography is
undetectability, which means that the stegos should
be visually and statistically similar to the covers
while keeping the embedding rate as high as possible.
Unlike LSB replacement and LSBM, which
deal with the pixel values independently, LSB
matching revisited (LSBMR) uses a pair of pixels as
an embedding unit, in which the LSB of the first
pixel carries one bit of secret message, and the
relationship (odd–even combination) of the two pixel
values carries another bit of secret message. In such a
way, the modification rate of pixels can decrease
from 0.5 to 0.375 bits/pixel (bpp) in the case of a
maximum embedding rate, meaning fewer changes to
the cover image at the same payload compared to
LSB replacement and LSBM.
EDGE DETECTOR ALGORITHM
Based on the above criteria, the canny edge
detector first smoothes the image to eliminate and
noise. It then finds the image gradient to highlight
regions with high spatial derivatives. The algorithm
then tracks along these regions and suppresses any
pixel that is not at the maximum (non maximum
suppression). The gradient array is now further
reduced by hysteresis. Hysteresis is used to track
along the remaining pixels that have not been
suppressed. Hysteresis uses two thresholds and if the
magnitude is below the first threshold, it is set to zero
(made a nonedge). If the magnitude is above the high
threshold, it is made an edge. And if the magnitude is
between the 2 thresholds, then it is set to zero unless
there is a path from this pixel to a pixel with a
gradient above T2.
A. Step 1
In order to implement the edge detector
algorithm, a series of steps must be followed. The
first step is to filter out any noise in the original
image before trying to locate and detect any edges.
And because the Gaussian filter can be computed
using a simple mask, it is used exclusively in the
algorithm. Once a suitable mask has been calculated,
the Gaussian smoothing can be performed using
standard convolution methods. A convolution mask is
usually much smaller than the actual image. As a
result, the mask is slid over the image, manipulating a
square of pixels at a time. The larger the width of the
Gaussian mask, the lower is the detector's sensitivity
to noise. The localization error in the detected edges
also increases slightly as the Gaussian width is
increased. The Gaussian mask used in my
implementation is shown below
B. Step 2
After smoothing the image and eliminating the
noise, the next step is to find the edge strength by
taking the gradient of the image. The Sobel operator
performs a 2-D spatial gradient measurement on an
image. Then, the approximate absolute gradient
magnitude (edge strength) at each point can be found.
The Sobel operator uses a pair of 3x3 convolution
masks, one estimating the gradient in the x-direction
2
(columns) and the other estimating the gradient in the
y-direction (rows). They are shown below:
The magnitude, or EDGE STRENGTH, of the
gradient is then approximated using the formula:
|G| = |Gx| + |Gy|
C. Step 3
Finding the edge direction is trivial once the gradient
in the x and y directions are known. However, you
will generate an error whenever sum X is equal to
zero. So in the code there has to be a restriction set
whenever this takes place. Whenever the gradient in
the x direction is equal to zero, the edge direction has
to be equal to 90 degrees or 0 degrees, depending on
what the value of the gradient in the y-direction is
equal to. If GY has a value of zero, the edge direction
will equal 0 degrees. Otherwise the edge direction
will equal 90 degrees. The formula for finding the
edge direction is just:
theta = invtan (Gy / Gx)
D. Step 4
Once the edge direction is known, the next step is to
relate the edge direction to a direction that can be
traced in an image. So if the pixels of a 5x5 image are
aligned as follows:
x x x x x
x x x x x
x x a x x
x x x x x
x x x x x
Then, it can be seen by looking at pixel ‘a’, there are
only four possible directions when describing the
surrounding pixels - 0 degrees (in the horizontal
direction), 45 degrees (along the positive
diagonal), 90 degrees (in the vertical direction),
or 135 degrees (along the negative diagonal). So now
the edge orientation has to be resolved into one of
these four directions depending on which direction it
is closest to (e.g. if the orientation angle is found to
be 3 degrees, make it zero degrees). Think of this as
taking a semicircle and dividing it into 5 regions.
Therefore, any edge direction falling within
the yellow range (0 to 22.5 & 157.5 to 180 degrees)
is set to 0 degrees. Any edge direction falling in
the green range (22.5 to 67.5 degrees) is set to 45
degrees. Any edge direction falling in the blue
range (67.5 to 112.5 degrees) is set to 90 degrees.
And finally, any edge direction falling within the red
range (112.5 to 157.5 degrees) is set to 135 degrees.
E. Step 5
After the edge directions are known, non maximum
suppression now has to be applied. Non maximum
suppression is used to trace along the edge in the
edge direction and suppress any pixel value (sets it
equal to 0) that is not considered to be an edge. This
will give a thin line in the output image.
f. Step 6
Finally, hysteresis is used as a means of
eliminating streaking. Streaking is the breaking up of
an edge contour caused by the operator output
fluctuating above and below the threshold. If a single
threshold, T1 is applied to an image, and an edge has
an average strength equal to T1, then due to noise,
there will be instances where the edge dips below the
threshold. Equally it will also extend above the
threshold making an edge look like a dashed line. To
avoid this, hysteresis uses 2 thresholds, a high and a
low. Any pixel in the image that has a value greater
than T1 is presumed to be an edge pixel, and is
marked as such immediately. Then, any pixels that
are connected to this edge pixel and that have a value
greater than T2 are also selected as edge pixels. If
you think of following an edge, you need a gradient
3
of T2 to start but you don't stop till you hit a gradient
below T1.
a. Before applying algorithm b. After applying algorithm
The above show the images before and after
applying the algorithm. Thus the edge of the image is
successfully found and then message will be
embedded.
LSBMR STEGANOGRAPHY
In the data embedding stage, the scheme
first initializes some parameters, which are used for
subsequent data preprocessing and region selection,
and then estimates the capacity of those selected
regions. If the regions are large enough for hiding the
given secret message, then data hiding is performed
on the selected regions. Finally, it does some post
processing to obtain the stego image. Otherwise the
scheme needs to revise the parameters, and then
repeats region selection and capacity estimation until
can be embedded completely.
Please note that the parameters may be
different for different image content and secret
message . We need them as side information to
guarantee the validity of data extraction. In practice,
such side information (7 bits in our work) can be
embedded into a predetermined region of the image.
In data extraction, the scheme first extracts the side
information from the stego image. Based on the side
information, it then does some preprocessing and
identifies the regions that have been used for data
hiding. Finally, it obtains the secret message
according to the corresponding extraction algorithm.
In this paper, we apply such a region adaptive
scheme to the spatial LSB domain. We use the
absolute difference between two adjacent pixels as
the criterion for region selection, and use LSBMR as
the data hiding algorithm. The details of the data
embedding and data extraction algorithms are as
follows.
A. Data Embedding
• Step 1: The cover image of size of is first on the secret key , until all the hidden bits are
divided into non overlapping blocks of extracted completely. For each qualified embedding
pixels. For each small block, we rotate it by a random unit, say, , where ,we
degree in the range of as extract the two secret bits as follows:
determined by a secret key . The resulting image
is rearranged as a row vector by raster scanning.
And then the vector is divided into non overlapping
embedding units with every two consecutive pixels
, where assuming is We eventually get the secret bits by
an even number.

Two benefits can be obtained by the random

rotation. First it can prevent the detector from getting
the correct embedding units without the rotation key
, and thus security is improved. Furthermore,
both horizontal and vertical edges (pixel pairs) within
the cover image can be used for data hiding.

• Step 2: According to the scheme of LSBMR, 2

secret bits can be embedded into each embedding
unit. Therefore, for a given secret message, the
threshold for region selection can be determined as
follows. Let be the set of pixel pairs whose absolute
differences are greater than or equal to a parameter

Proposed scheme. (a) Data embedding. (b) Data extraction.

Then we calculate the threshold by

where , is the size of the secret
message , and denotes the total number of elements
in the set of . Please note that when, the proposed
method becomes the conventional LSBMR scheme,
which means that our method can achieve the same
payload capacity as LSBMR (except for 7 bits).
B. Data Extraction
To extract data, we first extract the side
information, i.e., the block size and the threshold
from the stego image. We then do exactly the same
things as Step 1 in data embedding. The stego image
is divided into blocks and the blocks are
then rotated by random degrees based on the secret
key . The resulting image is rearranged as a row
vector . Finally, we get the embedding units by
dividing into non overlapping blocks with two
consecutive pixels.
We travel the embedding units whose
absolute differences are greater than or equal to the
threshold according to a pseudorandom order based
4
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
In this section we will show our
experimental results. From the edge its pixel value is
found out and the following process will take place as
follows.
Specific cropping position is given
accordingly to the image. Image will get cropped in
that position in the size of 200 × 200 pixel. In the
Cropped region, rotate it by a random degree in the
range of {0, 90, 180, 270} now after rotation, text
will be embedded in a particular pixel value.
The following examples will explains how
the data is embedded in the image pixel value.
Ex1:
Let the message is welcome
w è ASCII è 119 è binary value è 1110111
bits 1110111
Particular position (50 ,52) è pixel value è 4272668 c. Cropped image

First bit è 1 Thus after successfully cropping the image

is rotated and then the secret message is embedded.
Pixel value is 4272668è %2 è 0

Therefore add one to the pixel value: è 4272668.

Ex2:

Let the message is welcome

c è ASCII è 99 è binary value è 1100011

bits 1100011

Particular position (50 , 118) è pixel value è 1328993 d. Rotated image

First bit è 1

Pixel value is 1328993è %2 è 1

Therefore don’t change the pixel value è 1328993.

e. Stego image

Thus our experimental results has shown

that the stego image is exactly the same as the cover
a. Cover image image. Thus our work is highly secure.

The number of embedding regions of the

images differs accordingly to the images and their
respective edges. When the image has more number
of colors it will contain more no of edge.

For our experimental work, we have

considered 4 images and their respective edges.

b. Edge of the cover image

a. Car (edges=11933) c. Eye (edges=1538)

5
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[10] J. Fridrich, M. Goljan, and R. Du, “Steganalysis based

10000
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0
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CONCLUSION
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are improved significantly compared to typical LSB- image watermarking,” in Proc. 3th Int. Workshop on
based approaches and their edge adaptive versions. Information Hiding, 1999, vol. 1768, pp. 211–236.
Furthermore, it is expected that our adaptive idea can
be extended to other Steganographic methods such as
audio/video Steganography.

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