Signal Processing: Image Communication 92 (2021) 116118

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Signal Processing: Image Communication

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/image

Reversible data hiding based on multiple histograms modification and deep

neural networks
Jiacheng Hou a , Bo Ou a ,∗, Huawei Tian b , Zheng Qin a
a College of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China
b
School of National Security, People’s Public Security University of China, Beijing 100038, China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: In the previous multiple histograms modification (MHM) based reversible data hiding (RDH) method, the
Reversible data hiding prediction-error histograms are generated by a fixed manner, which may constrain the performance owing to
Multiple histograms modification the lack of adaptivity. In order to compensate this, we propose a deep neural networks (DNN) based method for
Dynamical multiple histograms generation
dynamical multiple histograms generation. Through learning the prior knowledge, DNN is able to establish the
Deep neural networks
histograms with different sizes for a better redundancy exploitation. For each histogram, two optimal expansion
bins will be determined to minimize the distortion caused by the modification. Besides, the strategy consisted
of the memo technique and the entropy measurement are applied to accelerate the parameter optimization.
Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms some of state-of-the-art RDH methods.

1. Introduction
In the current society, the information spreads in an incredible
speed, which brings new challenges that the copyright and integrity
of the image, audio and video are often infringed. Adding watermarks
is the way for protection, but it may lead to permanent distortion
to the cover image. In some occasions, any unrecoverable distortion
on the original image will be assumed as intolerable. In this scene,
reversible data hiding (RDH) is proposed to embed the secret message
into a digital image and enable the original image recovered after data
extraction [1]. It has received plenty of attention from the information
community due to the increasing needs in military, medical and judi-
cial fields that have more strict requirements for authentication and
copyright [2,3].
The motivation of RDH is to achieve efficient embedding with less
distortion and a high embedding rate at the premise of reversibility.
Specifically, for a fixed embedding rate, the distortion is expected to be
as less as possible, and this can be exactly measured by the peak signal-
to-noise ratio (PSNR) of the marked image versus the original one [4].
Thus, for a given embedding capacity (EC), the higher the PSNR, the
better the RDH method performs. Around the goal, the motivation of
the state-of-the-art RDH algorithms is to fully utilize the redundant
room of the host image to embed data bits.
The existing RDH methods can be divided into five categories.
The early type of algorithm is based on lossless compression [4–9].
The core thought is to compress a set of selected features from the
original image to eliminate redundant space and then save room for
hiding secret information. Fridrich et al. [4] firstly presented a method
through compressing the least significant bit (LSB) plane of the original
image. Qian et al. [6] proposed a distributed source encoding based
method for encrypted images. In the scheme, after encryption by stream
cipher, some most significant bits are compressed to vacate room
for embedding. Qin et al. [9] employed an improved sparse matrix
encoding for different types of image blocks, and achieved the efficient
RDH method on the encrypted image.
The second type of methods is based on difference expansion (DE),
which exploits the correlations between adjacent pixels to embed the
data bits [10–13]. It is firstly proposed by Tian [10] that performs a
series of mathematical operations on pairs of adjacent pixels. Each pair
of pixels is able to embed one data bit, and the maximal embedding
capacity can theoretically reach 0.5 bit per pixel (bpp). Li et al. [11]
proposed a two-dimensional difference-pair mapping scheme for em-
bedding. Arham et al. [12] proposed a quad-based multiple layer data
hiding scheme to reduce the difference value in pixels. Xue et al. [13]
utilized the statistical distribution on the difference-pair to design a
new mechanism for better using high-frequency difference-pairs.
The third type of methods is based on histogram shifting (HS) [14–
19], which utilizes the statistical property of the image to embed
data bits. The initial work [14] builds the intensity histogram of the
cover image and employs the peak bin for embedding. Therefore, the
embedding capacity is determined by the magnitude of peak bin. Hong
et al. [16] employed a 3D Delaunay mesh to obtain the prediction
histogram and embedded data bits by shifting it. Wang et al. [18]
constructed a developed rate–distortion model, using optimization al-
gorithms such as genetic algorithm to find optimal peak and valley bins.

∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: 605680964@qq.com (J. Hou), oubo@hnu.edu.cn (B. Ou), hwtian@live.cn (H. Tian), zqin@hnu.edu.cn (Z. Qin).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.image.2020.116118
Received 23 August 2020; Received in revised form 5 November 2020; Accepted 16 December 2020
Available online 26 December 2020
0923-5965/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
J. Hou, B. Ou, H. Tian et al. Signal Processing: Image Communication 92 (2021) 116118

Jia et al. [19] defined the fluctuation value, and the sub-image with The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The classical PEE
less fluctuation is selected for histogram shifting to avoid invalid pixels technique and the variant of it based on MHM will be briefly reviewed
being modified. in Section 2. Section 3 presents the proposed method and the imple-
The fourth type of methods is referred as prediction-error expansion mentation details. Section 4 presents the experimental comparisons and
(PEE) [20–28]. The idea of PEE is to exploit the correlation between the corresponding analysis. Finally, Section 5 concludes the paper.
the pixel and its prediction. In this light, the accurate prediction leads
to a better embedding performance, and many various predictors have 2. Related works
been developed including rhombus predictor [20], median edge detec-
tor [21], gradient adjusted predictor [22], partial differential equation In this section, we will firstly introduce the classical PEE tech-
based predictor [23] and so on. On the other hand, the performance nique [20] and then describe the conventional MHM-based RDH
improvement can be achieved by evolving the dimension of prediction- method [32].
error histogram from one-dimension to the higher dimensions. In [24],
Ou et al. proposed a two-dimensional histogram modification method, 2.1. The classical PEE technique
where two prediction-errors are modified together. Xiao et al. [25]
proposed a content dependent modification scheme to generate two- The PEE-based method employs a predictor at first and sorts the
dimensional histogram adaptively. Qin et al. [26] proposed a new pixels according to the context. Then, the pixels’ modifications are
prediction scheme by considering the predetermined pixel pair and determined by the prediction-errors. The basic manipulations for the
its neighbors as well as the local complexity to generate multiple PEE-based RDH method are summarized as follows.
two-dimensional prediction histograms. Gao et al. [27] built the two-
dimensional histogram of the second time prediction for high dynamic • The generation of prediction-error histogram. At the begin-
range images. ning, all the pixels in the original image are scanned in a specific
The last type of methods is based on the integer-transform [29–31]. order to form a sequence (𝑝1 , … , 𝑝𝑁 ). Next, through a given
Coltuc and Chassery [29] firstly proposed an integer transform based predictor, the predictions of pixels are obtained as (𝑝̂1 , … , 𝑝̂𝑁 ).
algorithm for pixel pairs. Weng et al. [30] used smaller-sized blocks Thus, the prediction-errors can be computed by
for embedding to reduce distortion as well as the size of location map
𝑒𝑖 = ⌊𝑝𝑖 − 𝑝̂𝑖 ⌋. (1)
by the integer Haar wavelet transform. Ma et al. [31] proposed an
integer wavelet transform based RDH method for encrypted images, Here, ⌊⋅⌋ is the flooring function. By collecting all the prediction-
which embeds data bits into high-frequency coefficients of encrypted errors, the prediction-error histogram (PEH) is established.
image. • Embedding data bits. The embedding is finished by modifying
Recently, with the deep understanding on RDH and continuous the prediction-errors. Assume that the maximal modification on
development on computing ability, the data embedding on the image a pixel is 1. The manipulation to the prediction-error 𝑒𝑖 can be
can be optimized in a more detailed and skillful way. Li et al. [32] pro- concluded as
posed a multiple histograms modification (MHM) based RDH method. ⎧𝑒 , if 𝑏 < 𝑒𝑖 < 𝑎
They decomposed the entire prediction-error histogram into 16 equal- ⎪ 𝑖
sized histograms through the complexity measurement. In this way, ⎪𝑒𝑖 + 𝑑, if 𝑒𝑖 = 𝑎
′ ⎪
multiple histograms can be modified with a set of selected optimal ex- 𝑒𝑖 = ⎨𝑒𝑖 + 𝑑, if 𝑒𝑖 = 𝑏 (2)
pansion bins to reduce distortion. For MHM, the generation of multiple ⎪
⎪𝑒𝑖 + 1, if 𝑒𝑖 > 𝑎
histograms and the corresponding modification on them are two key ⎪𝑒 − 1,
⎩ 𝑖 if 𝑒𝑖 < 𝑏
issues. However, in the previous method [32], the multiple histograms
generation is based on manual classification interfered by human in- where 𝑒′𝑖 denotes the marked prediction-error, {𝑎, 𝑏} are the ex-
tuition, and this is not adaptable for the image content all the time. pansion bins in the prediction-error histogram, and 𝑑 ∈ {0, 1}
When the texture distribution of image fluctuates significantly, it is represents the to-be-embedded data bit. In this way, the se-
better to make the sizes of multiple histograms different. In this way, cret message can be embedded into the cover image in binary
the diversity of pixel contexts can be well-exploited for the subsequent form completely. Note that , in [20], {𝑎 = 0, 𝑏 = −1} are
embedding. used for embedding, and the corresponding modification on the
Therefore, we argue that the traditional MHM-based RDH method prediction-error is
can be further enhanced through improving the histograms genera-
⎧𝑒 + 𝑑, if 𝑒𝑖 = 0
tion, and this can be realized by building an intelligent classification ⎪ 𝑖
model. In the last decade, the artificial neural network has been proved ⎪𝑒 + 𝑑, if 𝑒𝑖 = −1
𝑒𝑖 = ⎨ 𝑖 (3)
to be skilled in human-like classification by giving depth. Through ⎪𝑒𝑖 + 1, if 𝑒𝑖 > 0
machine learning algorithm, the deep neural network (DNN) is ca- ⎪𝑒 − 1, if 𝑒𝑖 < −1.
⎩ 𝑖
pable of establishing a marvelous mapping that may be useful for
classifying pixels. Hence, we consider the DNN has the potential to • Extraction of data bits. In the PEE-based RDH method, the
accomplish redundancy utilization from a new perspective and yield key for reversibility is due to the same prediction before and
superior performance. after embedding. Besides, the selected expansion bins {𝑎, 𝑏} are
In this paper, we propose an improved MHM-based RDH method necessary for extraction. According to the extracted expansion
with the aid of deep learning technique. The intelligent classification bins {𝑎, 𝑏}, the prediction-errors can be restored by
of DNN is employed to generate multiple histograms and use both the
similarity and the dissimilarity of pixels for a low-distortion embedding. ⎧𝑒 , if 𝑏 ≤ 𝑒𝑖 ≤ 𝑎
⎪ 𝑖
By learning the extracted experience of sample images, the DNN is able ⎪𝑒 − 1, if 𝑒𝑖 > 𝑎
𝑒𝑖 = ⎨ 𝑖 (4)
to automatically establish multiple histograms with a content-adaptable if 𝑒𝑖 < 𝑏
⎪𝑒𝑖 + 1,
manner. After obtaining the histograms, the entropy measurement ⎪.
is used to assign embedding preferences, and a combined searching ⎩
strategy is applied for expansion bin selection. The experimental re- During the process, the data bits can be extracted by comparing
sults demonstrate that the proposed method performs better than the the marked prediction-errors with the expansion bin parameters.
state-of-the-art methods. That is, if the marked prediction-error equals to 𝑎 or 𝑏, a data

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J. Hou, B. Ou, H. Tian et al. Signal Processing: Image Communication 92 (2021) 116118

Fig. 1. The graph (a) demonstrates the implementation details and (b) presents the generated PEHs of shadow pixels for 𝑛 ∈ {0, 4, 8, 12, 15} in the image Lena [32].

bit 0 is extracted. If it equals to 𝑎 − 1 or 𝑏 + 1, the data bit 1 classification for histograms generation. To remedy this, we integrate
is extracted. After that, the sequence of pixels (𝑝1 , … , 𝑝𝑁 ) can be the DNN to produce multiple histograms by intelligent classification.
recovered completely by We firstly employ the clustering algorithm to measure a large amount
of context information from the image data set. Then, a well-devised
𝑝𝑖 = 𝑝̂𝑖 + 𝑒𝑖 . (5)
DNN will learn from the clustering results and generalize it to establish
Since the predictions are the same, the pixels are restored as histograms for various images adaptively. Since the histograms are
original and the lossless extraction is achieved. diverse to each other, the modification can be assigned to pixels more
accurately so that the benefit is gained in terms of PSNR. The merit of
2.2. The MHM-based RDH method DNN based histograms generation is also shown in searching optimal
expansion bins. On the one hand, the search is designed to execute
Based on the traditional PEE technique, Li et al. [32] proposed on two fix-sized matrices instead of on images directly, which helps
a new RDH method that achieves the data embedding by modifying the robustness of the algorithm and save the runtime. On the other
multiple histograms instead of one. The key points of MHM-based hand, histograms can be further simplified by entropy measurement,
method are summarized as follows. and then various searching ranges are devised for them. This gives more
flexibility and wider ranges for searching, which is verified by the later
• Complexity measurement. For a pixel 𝑝𝑖 , its complexity-value 𝑛𝑖
experiments.
is computed from its twelve neighbor pixels as shown in Fig. 1.
Thus, the value of 𝑛𝑖 offers a way of selection for pixels. With
the sorted sequence of 𝑛𝑖 , the corresponding pixels can be divided 3. Proposed method
into 16 groups equally. The numerical boundary of each group is
calculated as This section is organized as follows. We first describe the basic
{ } procedure of the proposed method, and then introduce the DNN model
♯{1 ≤ 𝑖 ≤ 𝑁 ∶ 𝑛𝑖 ≤ 𝑛} 𝑗+1
𝑠𝑗 = 𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑚𝑖𝑛 ≤ , ∀𝑗 ∈ {0, … , 15}. as well as the parameter optimization in Section 3.1. At last, Section 3.2
𝑛 𝑁 16
supplements some necessary details.
(6) As shown in Fig. 2, the context of a pixel 𝑝𝑖 is defined to consist
Note that while extraction, the numerical boundaries are needed of two types of pixels. The pixels marked by circles are denoted as
to embed as a portion of the auxiliary information. {𝑐1 , 𝑐2 , … , 𝑐9 }, and these pixels are used to predict the label 𝑙𝑖 of the
• The generation of PEHs. The next step is to generate 16 PEHs pixel through DNN as
from the grouping results. As shown in Fig. 1, the prediction-value 𝑙𝑖 = 𝐷(𝑐1 , 𝑐2 , … , 𝑐9 ). (8)
𝑝̂𝑖 for 𝑝𝑖 is calculated from four nearest pixels as
⌊ ⌋ Meanwhile, the prediction-error 𝑒𝑖 is obtained by the rhombus predic-
𝑣 + 𝑣2 + 𝑣3 + 𝑣4
𝑝̂𝑖 = 1 (7) tion as
4 ⌊ 4 ⌋
∑ 𝑟𝑗
Meanwhile, the prediction-error can be got by (1). Through 𝑒𝑖 = 𝑝 𝑖 − (9)
counting the frequencies of prediction-errors, the corresponding 𝑗=1
4
prediction-error histogram is obtained. Since there are 16 groups
where {𝑟1 , … , 𝑟4 } denote the four nearest pixel neighbors of the pixel.
of pixels, 16 PEHs are available for embedding.
Then, the pixels with the same label are collected into one group, and
• Parameters selection. After the generation of multiple histo-
the multiple prediction-error histograms can be established as
grams, two expansion bins {𝑎𝑛 , 𝑏𝑛 } are used for every histogram.
The expansion bin set contains 32 parameters. In [32], three ℎ𝑛 (𝑘) = ♯{1 < 𝑖 < 𝑁𝑒𝑛𝑑 ∶ 𝑙𝑖 = 𝑛, 𝑒𝑖 = 𝑘} (10)
searching rules are made for the selection with a relative low cost
as follows where ♯ counts the elements in the set, and 𝑁𝑒𝑛𝑑 is the index of end
point. Assume that expansion bins 𝑎𝑛 and 𝑏𝑛 (𝑎𝑛 > 𝑏𝑛 ) are selected for
– Rule 1: for each 𝑛 ∈ {0, … , 15}, 𝑎𝑛 ∈ {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, ∞}. the histogram ℎ𝑛 , the modification on the prediction-error 𝑒𝑖 is defined
– Rule 2: for each 𝑛 ∈ {0, … , 15}, 𝑏𝑛 = −𝑎𝑛 − 1. as
– Rule 3: 𝑏0 ≤ 𝑏1 ≤ ⋯ ≤ 𝑏15 .
⎧𝑒 , if 𝑏𝑛 < 𝑒𝑖 < 𝑎𝑛
The MHM-based method is advantageous for selecting smooth pixels ⎪ 𝑖
⎪𝑒𝑖 + 𝑑, if 𝑒𝑖 = 𝑎𝑛
to embed by measuring the context. Though this grants adaptivity for ′ ⎪
𝑒𝑖 = ⎨𝑒𝑖 + 𝑑, if 𝑒𝑖 = 𝑏𝑛 (11)
embedding, the multiple histograms generation is still defective owing ⎪
to the same processing way regardless of the image content. In the ⎪𝑒𝑖 + 1, if 𝑒𝑖 > 𝑎𝑛
conventional scheme [32], this drawback is mainly due to the manual ⎪𝑒 − 1, if 𝑒𝑖 < 𝑏𝑛 .
⎩ 𝑖

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J. Hou, B. Ou, H. Tian et al. Signal Processing: Image Communication 92 (2021) 116118

Fig. 2. The illustration for DNN-based classification model.

In this situation, considering multiple histograms, the total embedding part and removing the useless part. For example, if 𝐿0 = 2 (0 < 𝐿 <
capacity (𝐸𝐶) and the embedding distortion (𝐸𝐷) can be calculated by 255), the valid bin set for searching optimal expansion bins on ℎ0 is
{−2, −1, 0, 1}. In this way, the computation can be better assigned to
∑
𝑀 more valuable parts, and unworthy histograms that are small-sized and
𝐸𝐶 = (ℎ𝑙 (𝑎𝑙 ) + ℎ𝑙 (𝑏𝑙 )) (12) high-entropy are avoided for searching. To find 𝐿𝑛 , an entropy-based
𝑙=1
restriction is used as
𝐿𝑛
𝑀 ∑
∑ 255 ∑
−255 ∑
255
ℎ𝑛 (𝑒) 𝑁𝑛 ∑ ℎ𝑛 (𝑒) 𝑁𝑛
𝐸𝐷 = ( ℎ𝑙 (𝑗) + ℎ𝑙 (𝑗)) (13) 𝐸ℎ𝑛 − 𝐸𝑚,𝑛 = log2 − log2 ≤𝜉 (15)
𝑒=−255
𝑁 𝑛 ℎ𝑛 (𝑒) 𝑒=−𝐿
𝑁 𝑛 ℎ𝑛 (𝑒)
𝑙=1 𝑗>𝑎𝑙 𝑗<𝑏𝑙 𝑛

where 𝑀 is the number of histograms. So, the search for the optimal where 𝐸ℎ𝑛 and 𝐸𝑚,𝑛 are the entropy of the histogram ℎ𝑛 and the main
expansion bins can be formulated as the problem below part entropy respectively, and 𝑁𝑛 is the total number of pixels in this
{ histogram. If 𝐸ℎ0 − 𝐸𝑚,𝑛 ≤ 𝜉 (𝜉 is a small value), the main part is
𝐸𝐶
minimize 𝐸𝐷 ,
(14) able to replace the whole histogram while searching, so the searching
subject to 𝐸𝐶 ≥ 𝑃 𝑆 range can be minimized effectively. Therefore, the determination of 𝐿𝑛
where 𝑃 𝑆 is used to represent the size of payload. In [32], the algo- is equivalent to the following optimization problem
rithm based on enumeration is designed to solve the problem. Though {
three rules are used to limit the searching range, the cost is still minimize 𝐿𝑛 ,
∑−255 ℎ𝑛 (𝑒) 𝑁𝑛 ∑255 ℎ𝑛 (𝑒) 𝑁𝑛
considered as large owing to much repeated calculation. subject to 𝐸𝑟,𝑛 = 𝑒=−𝐿𝑛 log2 + 𝑒=𝐿𝑛 log2 ≤𝜉
𝑁𝑛 ℎ𝑛 (𝑒) 𝑁𝑛 ℎ𝑛 (𝑒)
In response to this drawback, an optimized algorithm is proposed
by utilizing the characteristics of optimal bins search in case of MHM. (16)
That is, in our method, two memos in matrix form are built in advance
where 𝐸ℎ𝑛 = 𝐸𝑚,𝑛 +𝐸𝑟,𝑛 . The entropy can be used to measure the amount
and saved in memory. In such a way, the algorithm will read these pre-
of information. If the entropy of redundant part is less than a small
calculated distortion and capacity values so as to avoid the repeated
threshold value 𝜉, this part will be assumed as useless part owing to
calculations. Besides, considering the characteristics of unequal-sized
little information and removed in the subsequent search to improve
histograms, various bin sets are used to find the optimal expansion
efficiency.
bins, which devises specific searching range according to the generated
histogram itself. The procedure of the proposed optimized algorithm is (3) Searching with the prepared memos and bin set matrix: In our
described as follows. method, Rule 2 and Rule 3 mentioned in Section 2.2 are employed
(1) Building memos: Before searching, two memos matrices are built as well to limit the searching range. Therefore, for the histogram ℎ𝑛 ,
with the same size of 𝐵 × 𝑀. The one is used for 𝐸𝐶, and the other one it has 𝑏𝑛 = −𝑎𝑛 − 1 and 𝑎𝑛 ≤ 𝑎𝑛−1 . Then, with the prepared memos
is for 𝐸𝐷. Next, we use (12) and (13) to compute the available capacity and the bin set matrix, the optimal expansion bins for each histogram
and estimated distortion respectively for all 𝐵 ×𝑀 situations. Note that, can be determined by an efficient way of transversal. Moreover, owing
𝐵 is the maximal length of bin set matrix. In this design, the value of to the enhanced computing ability offered by the optimized algorithm,
matrix in (𝑖, 𝑗) means the situation that bins {𝑎𝑖 , −𝑎𝑖 − 1} of histogram the bin set for searching optimal bins of every histogram is extended
ℎ𝑗 are used for embedding. Specifically, when comparing the selected with a skipping pattern. For the histogram ℎ𝑛 , the bin set for search is
expansion bins, the proposed algorithm will read memos and add every determined as
single situation as 𝑀𝑒𝑚𝑜(1, 0) + 𝑀𝑒𝑚𝑜(0, 1) + ⋯ + 𝑀𝑒𝑚𝑜(0, 𝑀 − 1) and
𝑀𝑒𝑚𝑜(2, 0) + 𝑀𝑒𝑚𝑜(0, 1) + ⋯ + 𝑀𝑒𝑚𝑜(0, 𝑀 − 1) rather than repeating the • If 𝐿𝑛 ≤ 9, 𝑎𝑛 ∈ {0, 1, 2, … , 𝐿 − 2, ∞}.
calculations. • If 𝐿𝑛 > 9 and 𝑛 is odd number, 𝑎𝑛 ∈ {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, … , 7+2(𝐿𝑛 −
(2) Constructing the bin set matrix: This matrix is designed to record 9), ∞}.
the length-value of every histogram as (𝐿0 , 𝐿1 , … , 𝐿𝑀−1 ). As shown in • If 𝐿𝑛 > 9 and 𝑛 is even number, 𝑎𝑛 ∈ {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, … , 8 +
Fig. 3, the histogram ℎ0 will be simplified by remaining the valuable 2(𝐿𝑛 − 9), ∞}.

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J. Hou, B. Ou, H. Tian et al.
Fig. 3. The procedure of simplifying the searching range using the histogram ℎ0 of image Airplane as an example.
Fig. 4. The processing mechanism of DNN using matrix and operator expression.
Here, 𝐿𝑛 is the length of bin set for ℎ𝑛 found by (16). By this design, the
searching range between each pair of adjacent histograms is enlarged
compared to the original algorithm [32] that searches the optimal
bins in the range of {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, ∞} for all histograms. Because
𝑎𝑛 > 7 is considered as less-informative, the skipping strategy is used
to provide much searching range with less cost. Furthermore, by parity
grouping, the similarity in terms of entropy between each pair of
histograms have been utilized to complement each other. Hence, with
the aid of techniques proposed above, the optimal expansion bins can
be found on extended and various bin sets for different histograms.
With these selected optimal expansion bins, the embedding for each
histogram can be finished by (11).
3.1. The DNN based classification model
Now, we will describe the proposed DNN model from several aspects
including the reversibility and the parameters determination. Based on
the previous research [33] and the trade-off between the validity and
complexity of the network, an eight-layers neural network with full
connection is trained and employed for classification. For a pixel 𝑝𝑖 , the
processing target is defined as its context pixels that consists of a vector
𝑋 = (𝑐1 , 𝑐2 , … , 𝑐9 ). The vector 𝑋 needs to be normalized by dividing the
maximal pixel value 255 for an 8-bit gray-scale image. After that, the
DNN will receive the vector 𝑋 and processes it as
𝑂 = 𝑋𝑊
𝑅 = 𝑅𝑒𝐿𝑈 (𝑂)
where 𝑂, 𝑊 , 𝑅 are the weight matrix of DNN, the output matrix and
the processed output matrix by the layer of ‘ReLU’ [34] respectively.
The sizes of these matrices are determined by the width of layers.
For example, if 𝑠𝑖 is the width of input layer and 𝑠ℎ is the width of
the hidden layer, then the weight matrix between the input layer and
the hidden layer is 𝑠𝑖 × 𝑠ℎ . For the proposed model, the operation
can be expressed using the matrix as shown in Fig. 4, where 𝑌 is
the classification result. Through the operation of ‘argmax’, 𝑌 can be
Signal Processing: Image Communication 92 (2021) 116118
transformed to label 𝑙. With the same 𝑙 before and after embedding,
the reversibility can be achieved. Therefore, a well-trained DNN will
produce the same calculation results, so multiple histograms can be
completely reproduced to achieve the reversibility.
Training an effective DNN is an important issue, and this is depen-
dent on the training data and the training algorithm. In our method,
the training data is pixel context, and pixels with similar context are
expected to be assigned with the same label. We measure the similarity
from the local mean value of the pixel context. It is a coarse screening.
After that, it is followed by the accurate selection. That is to use the
local complexity value of each block to further classify them. Hence, for
one pixel, it has two indices for measurement to ensure the accuracy.
These indices comprise its corresponding feature vector noted as 𝑓⃗
to symbolize it while clustering, and the detailed calculations are
presented later.
Then, the K-means algorithm will work on these feature vectors
and converge at a preset point where the Euclidean distances inner the
cluster are minimal and the Euclidean distances between the adjacent
clusters are maximal. In our model, it means the pixels in one histogram
have the most similar contexts and the pixels in different histograms
are context-various. Therefore, all the pixels can be labeled by the
clustering results automatically and available for training (see Fig. 5).
The training also includes the process of optimal parameters deter-
(17) mination, i.e., to find the optimal weight matrix set 𝜆 = {𝑊1 , 𝑊2 , 𝑊3 ,
𝑊4 , 𝑊5 , 𝑊6 }. Because the model is a deep network, the algorithm
(18) ADAM [35] is employed, which will adaptively compute the learning
rate 𝛼 through the moment estimation instead of a constant learning
rate in traditional algorithm. In the deep learning, this design greatly
accelerates the speed of convergence. The algorithm is described as
The good default settings for ADAM are 𝛼 = 0.001, 𝛽1 = 0.9,
𝛽2 = 0.999 and 𝜖 = 10−8 . Additionally, it is based on mini-batch train-
ing, and all operations are element-wise. This ensures little memory
required and the adaptive updating for the parameter. With the optimal
parameter set 𝜆 = {𝑊1 , 𝑊2 , 𝑊3 , 𝑊4 , 𝑊5 , 𝑊6 }, the DNN is well-trained.
5
J. Hou, B. Ou, H. Tian et al.
Fig. 5. The procedure of training a DNN model to generate multiple histograms for RDH.
Input: The initial learning rate 𝛼; The initial exponential decay rates 𝛽1 , 𝛽2 for moment
estimation; The small constant 𝜖 for numerical stabilization ; The initial parameters
𝜆 ; The size of mini-batch 𝑚.
Output: The optimal parameter set 𝜆.
Initializing the time step t and Initializing s, r, 𝜆 ;
while not converged do
1. Extracting a mini-batch of input data {𝑥(1) , ..., 𝑥(𝑚) } and their corresponding
output data {𝑦(1) , ..., 𝑦(𝑚) }.
1 ∑
2. Computing the gradient: 𝑔𝑡 ← 𝑚 ∇𝜆 𝑖 𝐿(𝑓 (𝑥(𝑖) ; 𝜆), 𝑦(𝑖) ) and 𝑡 ← 𝑡 + 1
3. Updating biased first moment estimate: 𝑠 ← 𝛽1 𝑠 + (1 − 𝛽1 )𝑔𝑡
⨀
4. Updating biased second moment estimate: 𝑟 ← 𝛽2 𝑠 + (1 − 𝛽2 )𝑔𝑡 𝑔𝑡
5. Correcting bias in second moment estimate: 𝑠̂ ← 𝑠 𝑚 = 𝑖𝑏
1−𝛽 𝑡
1 𝑖=1
𝑟
6. Correcting bias in second moment estimate: 𝑟̂ ←
1−𝛽 𝑡
2
7. Computing the updating: 𝛥𝜆 = −𝛼 √ 𝑠̂
𝑟̂+𝜖
8. Updating the parameters: 𝜆 = 𝜆 + 𝛥𝜆
end
Algorithm 1: The ADAM algorithm referred from [35]
Fig. 6. The illustration for double-layered technique and clustering indices.
3.2. Implementation details of the proposed method
Double-layer embedding. Previous RDH methods have shown that
the double-layered technique can make full use of all pixels for embed-
ding, and this technique is also adopted for the proposed method. As
shown in Fig. 6, pixels in the cover image will be divided into two
disjoint sets named as ‘shadow pixels’ and ‘blank pixels’. One half of
data bits are embedded at first into the shadow layer, and then the rest
of bits are embedded into the blank layer. Thus, the blank and shadow
pixels can predict each other separately to achieve rhombus prediction.
Definition of feature set 𝑓⃗. As mentioned before, two clustering
indices, the local complexity value 𝑐 and local mean value 𝑚, are
selected for clustering and consisted of a two-dimensional feature vec-
tor 𝑓⃗ = (𝑐, 𝑚). Every pixel is corresponding a feature vector while
clustering. The feature engineering is to assign different weights to
different indices so as to control their influence on clustering results.
According to the experimental results, the weights can be adjusted and
6
Signal Processing: Image Communication 92 (2021) 116118
finally be determined. Thus, with this idea, the local complexity value
𝑐 is calculated as
𝑐 = 𝑖𝑐 (|𝑏1 − 𝑠1 | + |𝑠1 − 𝑏5 | + |𝑏5 − 𝑠5 | + |𝑏3 − 𝑠3 |
+ |𝑠3 − 𝑏7 | + |𝑏4 − 𝑠4 | + |𝑏2 − 𝑠2 |
(19)
+ |𝑠2 − 𝑏6 | + |𝑏3 − 𝑠1 | + |𝑠3 − 𝑏5 | + |𝑠2 − 𝑏4 | + |𝑏4 − 𝑠3 |
+ |𝑏6 − 𝑠4 | + |𝑠4 − 𝑏7 | + |𝑏7 − 𝑠5 |)
where 𝑖𝑐 is its weight parameter, and the local mean value 𝑚 is
computed as
∑7
𝑏𝑖 ∑5
𝑠𝑗
+ 𝑖𝑠 (20)
7 5
𝑗=1
where 𝑖𝑏 and 𝑖𝑠 are weight parameters as well. Conventionally, the
initial values of the weight parameters are set as 0.5. Then, based on the
experimental results, weight parameters can be updated and the feature
engineering can be completed to optimize the clustering accuracy (see
Fig. 7).
Auxiliary information. Except from the required payload, the
extra information is also embedded into the image by using the LSB
replacement. In the proposed method, the auxiliary information for
every single layer include
(1) The optimal expansion bins 𝑎𝑛 = {𝑎0 , … , 𝑎𝑀 } (less than 4M bits).
(2) The correspondence map (cmap) for the new order 𝑐𝑛 = {𝑐0 , … ,
𝑐𝑀 } (less than 5M bits).
(3) The compressed location map CLM (𝑆𝐶𝐿𝑀 bits).
(4) The parameter for location map 𝐸𝐶𝐿𝑀 (⌈log2 𝑁⌉ bits).
(5) The end bits 𝑛𝑒𝑛𝑑 (⌈log2 𝑁⌉ bits).
Here ⌈⋅⌉ is the ceiling function. While extraction, multiple his-
tograms should be regenerated according to the extracted side infor-
mation 𝑐𝑚𝑎𝑝. The 𝑐𝑚𝑎𝑝 is used to achieve the conversion between the
DNN generated histograms and histograms for actual embedding. To be
specific, as Fig. 8 shows, taking three different histograms as examples,
they are generated by three different neurons, 𝑛1 , 𝑛3 , 𝑛𝑀 . In order to
assign embedding priority to the more concentrated histograms, the
histograms generated by neurons will be reordered based on their
entropy. As a result, the 𝑛1 becomes 𝑒𝑀 , 𝑛3 becomes 𝑒1 and 𝑛𝑀
becomes 𝑒6 . The small indexes are produced by ranking the entropy and
determine the embedding priority of each histogram. For reversibility,
the mapping of all 𝑀 histograms will be stored in a matrix referred as
𝑐𝑚𝑎𝑝 and embedded as the auxiliary information. Except from the 𝑐𝑚𝑎𝑝,
the location map is also needed to embed but is not always necessary
for the cover images. Such as the image Lena, it will not occur the
overflow/underflow problem while computing the prediction-value.
However, if the overflow/underflow problem occurs, the pixel will be
modified from 255 to 254 or 0 to 1. The end bit 𝑛𝑒𝑛𝑑 is used to record
the location of last processed bit, so the last scanned position can be
marked. Overall, the maximal total number of side bits is
𝑆𝑎𝑢𝑥 ≜ 9𝑀 + 2⌈log2 𝑁⌉ + 𝑆𝐶𝐿𝑀 . (21)
J. Hou, B. Ou, H. Tian et al. Signal Processing: Image Communication 92 (2021) 116118

Fig. 7. The frame of DNN-based MHM method for single-layer embedding and extraction on image Lena.

Fig. 8. The illustration for 𝑐𝑚𝑎𝑝 function with three different histograms as examples.

Fig. 9. The six tested images from left to right are Airplane, Elaine, Baboon, Lake, Lena and Boat.

In actual embedding, the side information is very small compared to the

secret message. These bits will be embedded by the LSB replacement to
the first 𝑆𝑎𝑢𝑥 pixels in the cover image after the embedding of the secret
message.

4. Experimental results

This section mainly introduces the performance of the proposed

method, by making comparisons and analysis conducted on the six
512 × 512 sized gray-scale images as shown in Fig. 9. The DNN model
is built under the frame of Keras with Python Version 3.7, and the RDH
algorithm is run on Matlab2017b. For DNNs, the database is essential
for the performance. In general, the DNN requires a large amount of
data to adjust the parameter set 𝜆 = {𝑊1 , 𝑊2 ..., 𝑊6 }. However, the
context of pixels in different images also has a high similarity. There-
fore, considering the training cost and the classification performance,
Fig. 10. The performance comparison between the proposed method and the
the features extracted from the Kodak that contains 24 natural images
conventional method [32] for single-layered embedding on Lake.
are employed for training. To evaluate the visual quality of the image,
the PSNR is used as the measure for performance comparison. Except
from the conventional MHM-based method [32], several advanced RDH
algorithms are also conducted for comparison including the method

7
J. Hou, B. Ou, H. Tian et al. Signal Processing: Image Communication 92 (2021) 116118

Fig. 11. The performance comparison between the proposed method and other state-of-the-art methods on six tested images.

based on reducing invalid pixels shifting in histogram shifting [19] Table 1

(RISHS) and the efficient pixel value ordering method [36] (EPVO). The comparison between the proposed method and the other state-of-the-art methods
for a capacity of 10000 bits.
As the basis of the conventional MHM-based method [32], the first
Image RISHS [19] EPVO [36] Conventional [32] Proposed
experiment is to make a simple comparison between the proposed
method and the conventional method. The MHM-based methods focus Lena 59.03 60.67 61.02 61.46
Baboon 54.72 54.55 56.25 56.36
on improving visual quality particularly for low embedding rate, at
Airplane 63.57 63.17 63.88 64.03
which this strategy can work the best. So, the first comparison is given Elaine 56.71 58.16 58.91 59.05
to compare these two methods while the embedding is merely executed Lake 58.73 59.82 59.55 60.13
for a single layer. Since the texture of image Lake is neither too smooth Boat 56.79 58.36 58.60 58.78
nor rough, it is used for comparison as shown in Fig. 10. Average 58.26 59.12 59.74 59.97
According to this figure, when the required capacity is higher, the
performance gain of the proposed method is lower, and finally the
proposed method performs as good as the conventional method when
Then, a fixed embedding capacity (10000 bits) is selected as a
the capacity reaches the maximum. Therefore, it can be concluded that
the proposed method can better utilize the characteristics of MHM and special case for comparison, and the results are shown in Table 1.
realize better embedding. From Table 1, it is seen that the proposed method outperforms than the

8
J. Hou, B. Ou, H. Tian et al.
Fig. 12. The comparison of histograms generated by DNN and traditional method [32] using the image Lena as an example.
other methods on six tested images, and the average PSNR is increased
by 0.23 dB, 0.85 dB and 1.71 dB to the conventional method, EPVO
method and RISHS method respectively. In particular, for the images
Lena and Lake, the PSNR increases 0.4 to 2.5 dB than the other three
methods, which shows the effectiveness of the proposed method. For
the other images, the superiority of the proposed method is still obvious
(around 0.2 to 2 dB increase). We consider that the proposed method
is advantageous in terms of visual quality at the condition of low
embedding capacity. Hence, to further verify this conclusion, Table 2
makes comparison when the required capacity is only 5000 bits.
9
Signal Processing: Image Communication 92 (2021) 116118
According to Table 2, the average performance of the proposed
method is better than the given EC of 10000 bits, which proves the
performance of proposed method can be more competent when the
given capacity is not high. It is worth mentioning that the performance
on image Lena and image Lake is still superior and exceeds the average
level. This illustrates that the proposed method is able to achieve
adaptive embedding according to different images. In order to further
test the performance of the proposed method, as Fig. 11, experiments
are made on six tested images with varying capacities ranging from
5000 bits to the maximum.
J. Hou, B. Ou, H. Tian et al. Signal Processing: Image Communication 92 (2021) 116118

Fig. 13. The illustration for the potential influence of the image content to the generated histograms using image Baboon (a) and the Gray-step image (b) as examples.

Table 2 Table 3
The comparison between the proposed method and other state-of-the-art methods for The runtime comparison for six tested images at EC = 10000 bits (Unit: second).
a capacity of 5000 bits. Algorithm Lena Airplane Baboon Boat Elaine Lake Average
Image RISHS [19] EPVO [36] Conventional [32] Proposed
Traditional [32] 267.873 295.575 633.234 569.119 293.509 638.165 449.58
Lena 62.38 64.05 64.25 64.81 Proposed 112.767 85.085 58.836 86.360 97.049 153.857 98.99
Baboon 58.11 59.24 60.48 60.46
Airplane 66.45 66.17 67.02 66.82
Elaine 62.96 62.02 62.87 63.44
Lake 62.12 63.94 63.97 64.72 D are very small, and they are regarded as unworthy for searching
Boat 60.49 62.15 62.11 62.31
to save computation. Thus, the time cost is lower. To confirm this,
Average 62.08 62.93 63.45 63.76
Table 3 compares the runtime of the searching algorithm between the
traditional searching algorithm [32] and the proposed one on all six
tested images.
In this figure, it is apparent that the proposed method either outper- As the table presents, though the proposed method enlarges the
forms or performs as good as other state-of-the-art methods for different searching range, the average runtime is still less than the conventional
capacities. Therefore, the conclusion can be made that among other scheme [32] and save much than two-third of time on average. This
three histograms shifting based methods, the proposed method can can not only be attributed to unequal histograms generation but can
achieve better data embedding performance. This is due to the new be attributed to the memo technique that avoids much unnecessary
histogram generation. calculation while searching. And the cost of this technique is only
The next analysis is given to the generated histograms compared to a little storage memory. Moreover, the proposed searching algorithm
the conventional method. As shown in Fig. 12, we select 12 histograms is relatively stable for various images, and the runtime for all six
of image Lena from the DNN model and the traditional method [32] images is around 100 s. By contrast, the time cost in the conventional
separately. These histograms are divided into four groups noted as method varies greatly for different images, where the minimal runtime
‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’ by ranking their corresponding entropy (𝐸̄ 𝐴 > 𝐸̄ 𝐵 > is around one-third of the maximal runtime. Hence, the proposed
𝐸̄ 𝐶 > 𝐸̄ 𝐷 ). It can be found that the entropy of histogram generated by scheme is more applicable for different images and platforms, because
DNN is gradually higher than the histogram generated by traditional the time spent is almost constant. Thus, the proposed algorithm is more
method from group A to group D. Specifically, in group A, the pro- robust, and the reason of robustness is attributed that the search is
posed histograms are more concentrated compared to the traditional no longer executed on specific images but on two size-fixed matri-
histograms. But in groups B and C, the situation is changed, as the ces. Meanwhile, the searching ability is improved significantly. The
entropy of the proposed histogram is prone to equal or even higher conventional algorithm only searches a fixed range {0, 1, … , 7, ∞} for
than the traditional histograms. In the last group D, the histograms all images. However, in the proposed scheme, the searching range is
generated by DNN are scattered. Since the DNN has learnt from a large adaptively extended by a skipping and parity grouping pattern, so the
number of classification results, it is able to achieve more credible later owns more excellent searching ability especially the cost is lower.
classification. Hence, the generated histograms can be more different Finally, the discussion is given to the limitation of the proposed
from each other such that the diversity can be fully exploited. Because method. During the experiments, we found the intelligent histograms
when the required capacity is not very high, sharper histograms are generation could enhance the performance but may fail to establish
available for embedding thereby to reduce distortion. Moreover, owing histograms for some special images that are defined as ‘simple images’.
to unequal-sized histograms generation, more flexibility is provided To confirm this, the comparison of histograms decomposition between
while modification. From Fig. 12, the sizes of histograms in group two images, Baboon and the Gray-step are used for experiments. As

10
J. Hou, B. Ou, H. Tian et al.
graph (a) of Fig. 13, the image Baboon is used, for the improvement
of its performance is not obvious as shown in Fig. 11. From its pixels
distribution, there are no pixels are recognized by the neuron (a).
Though the entire histogram has been effectively decomposed from the
generated multiple histograms, the gain of performance is less owing
to lack histograms. Therefore, we assume when the image is simple,
the proposed method will be unable to establish a sufficient number of
histograms.
Based on this assumption, the Gray-step image is used for the
next experiment, because it contains a lot of pixels with almost the
same context. From graph (b), the DNN can merely generate six valid
histograms. As a consequence, the entire histogram has not been fully
decomposed, which confirms the assumption. Therefore, the main limi-
tation of the proposed method is considered as the DNN may be unable
to decompose the histogram for some special images. Since the context
of these images is simple, the DNN cannot process them according to
the past classification experience learnt from the nature images. Hence,
our future work will focus on how to better utilize the characteristics
of different images to train a more applicable DNN model.
5. Conclusion
In this paper, we propose a RDH method based on deep neural
networks for a dynamical multiple histogram generation. The multi-
ple histograms can be established with different sizes according to
the image content, and an optimized algorithm is also proposed to
find optimal expansion bins for each histogram. Compared with the
conventional MHM method, the proposed method achieves RDH with
a more intelligent and adaptive manner by merging deep learning
technique. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method
yields a better performance than the conventional MHM method and
other state-of-the-art RDH methods in terms of the low-distortion em-
bedding. According to our knowledge, more understanding of neural
networks will help the adaptive embedding and therefore enhance the
performance of RDH. The attempts in this direction would be valuable.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Jiacheng Hou: Conception or design of the work, Acquisition,
Analysis, or interpretation of data for the work, Writing - original draft,
Writing - review & editing. Bo Ou: Conception or design of the work,
Acquisition, Analysis, or interpretation of data for the work, Writing -
original draft, Writing - review & editing. Huawei Tian: Conception
or design of the work, Acquisition, Analysis, or interpretation of data
for the work, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.
Zheng Qin: Conception or design of the work, Acquisition, Analysis,
or interpretation of data for the work, Writing - original draft, Writing
- review & editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the National Science Foundation of China
(Nos. 61502160, 61772539, 61972405, 61772191), and the National
Key R&D Projects, China (2018YFB0704000). All authors approved the
version of the manuscript to be published.
11
Signal Processing: Image Communication 92 (2021) 116118
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