A Methodology to Securely Transfer a Secret Image Based on Reversible Color Transformations and HSV Color Model.

Abstract

Images from different sources or locations are often used and are transffered using the internet for different purposes, such as important and confidential enterprise archives, document storage systems, medical imaging systems, and military image databases. This kind of images may contain secret or confidential information since it should be protected from leakage during transmissions. A methodology for secure image transferring is most needed, which is to transfer a secret image into a meaningful Secret Fragment Mosaic image with size almost same and looking similar to the pre selected target image. The mosaic image is the final outcome of arranging of the block fragments of a secret image in a way so as to disguise the other image called the target image. The mosaic image, which looks similar to a randomly selected target image, which is used for hiding of the secret image by color transforming their characteristics similar to the blocks of the target image. Such technique is necessary so for the lossless recovery of the transmitted secret image. The appropriate information is embedded into the mosaic image for the recovery of the transmitted secret image.
Index Terms—Color transformation; data hiding; image encryption; mosaic image; secure image transmission.