Maximizing the payload of the octagon-shaped shell-based data hiding scheme

This study improves the octagon-shaped shell-based data hiding scheme to achieve the highest possible payload. Unlike the traditional exploiting-modification-direction data hiding method, a reference matrix is used instead of the extraction function in the embedding and extraction procedures. The proposed method uses a heuristic method for exploring all possible solutions to find the one that is best adapted to the human visual system. The experimental results show that the proposed method achieves a higher payload as compared to that achieved in earlier studies.