Adaptive Sorting-Based Data Hiding Scheme for JPEG Images

The Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) compression serves as an image compression technique widely used for internet transmission applications. In 2021, Xie et al. employed the exploiting modification direction (EMD) technique for irreversible data hiding within JPEG images. However, their failure to consider the correlation between different discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficient blocks resulted in suboptimal image quality after embedding secret messages. Therefore, this paper introduces an improved sorting method that prioritizes embedding the DCT coefficient pairs with minimal embedded distortion (ED) through adaptive sorting of DCT coefficients. In scenarios involving embedding for complex images or high payloads, the proposed method achieves a Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) value that is 5 dB higher than that achieved by Xie et al.’s method.