Data Hiding Based on Noise-Balanced Error Diffusion in Color Image

In the publishing and printing applications, hidden data is embedded into images for copyright protection and ownership generally. In this paper, a reasonable data hiding method based on noise-balanced error diffusion (NBEDF) is proposed, which is applied in color halftone image. Color image is firstly separated into grayscale images from RGB color space to CMYK color space. Secondly, Floyd-Steinberg error diffusion operator is used, and halftone images will be obtained. Finally,through NBEDF, hidden data is embedded in the halftone image which contains the largest amount of information. The experimental results show that hidden information can be visible , when the corresponding decoded image overlays the color image with hidden information. The data hiding method proposed in this paper can be well applied on security printing.