Reversible data embedding technique for palette images using de-clustering

In this paper, a reversible data embedding method for color images is proposed. The technique of data embedding is used to hide the secret data into multimedia such as text content, audio, video, and images. In some applications, the reversibility of data embedding is an important requirement, as in distance medical treatment and military industrial applications. Many researchers have proposed reversible techniques that work on grayscale images, but these methods cannot be applied directly to color images, which in recent years have increased in popularity and have more redundant space available for embedding the secret data. Moreover, the size of color image can be reduced by being sorted storing in the palette-based format. Some researchers have proposed data embedding techniques for palette-based images. While their methods successfully achieve the purpose of secret data delivery, they do so without reversibility. In this paper, we propose a data embedding method in palette-based images with reversibility. The simulation result shows that the proposed method embeds 255Kb into a palette image sized 512×512 pixels and that the restored image and the original image are the same.