A Juxtaposition Between Integer Wavelet Transform and Discrete Wavelet Transform for Secure Image Steganography

Abstract

Image steganography is a technique that is used to hide information. The information can be of various types like image, video, or audio. Steganography is done so that no one apart from the correct receiver can retrieve the information. This paper consists of all advantages and highlights of the wavelet transform but with the additional features like randomness and some default values that are already built-in it. Various algorithms can be used in steganography and they provide good hiding capacity and low detectability. Here we have hidden the image into the cover image using Integer Wavelet Transform (IWT) and also using Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and compared which technique gives better results. It is very difficult to predict the presence of a hidden image inside the stego image since it looks exactly like the cover image. There is no loss in quality from the secret image to the extracted image since the PSNR (Peak Signal to noise ratio) is high for both of them. This process was done using both DWT and IWT and the results prove that that the IWT technique is not only simpler but also more efficient than the DWT technique since it gives higher PSNR values. Through the proposed algorithm, an increase in the strength and imperceptibility is noticed and it can also maintain various transformations such as scaling, translation, and rotation with algorithms that already exist. The final results, after comparing both the transforms prove that the algorithm which is being proposed in IWT is indeed effective