Performance Evaluation of Image Steganography Based on Cover Selection and Contourlet Transform

Steganography, the science of invisible communication is one of the branches of information hiding. It allows secret data transmission and hides the existence of message itself so as to protect the transmitted information from unintended recipient. In past decade, a lot of research has been done on various steganography schemes in spatial and transform domain. In this article, we present a novel idea to hide secret data in contour let domain. In order to have secure communication in the presence of steganalyzer, we have adopted the cover selection criteria based on contrast measurement. Using contrast measurement, suitable cover is chosen from standard test image database and then embedding is carried out in contour let sub bands of cover image. Embedding data in suitable cover image will enhance system performance and results in more secured steganography. The efficiency of the employed method is illustrated using image quality metrics.