Reversible Data Hiding in Encrypted Images with Two-MSB Prediction

In recent years, reversible data hiding in encrypted images (RDHEI) that embeds additional data into the encrypted image content has received more and more attention. In previous RDHEI methods, there is no one considering the correlation between neighboring pixels. In this paper, to better explore the correlation between neighbor pixels, a novel reversible data hiding method in encrypted images with two-MSB (MSB and second MSB) prediction is proposed. After analyzing the original image content and detecting all the possible prediction errors, we encrypt the original image content using the bitwise exclusive-or (XOR) operation and highlight prediction error based on the error location binary map. Finally, all available pixels are embedded with additional data by two-MSB substitution. In our method, reversibility, separability and error-free data extraction are realized. The experimental results show that the proposed method providing a higher embedding rate and better quality of directly decrypted image compared with other start-of-the-art methods.