Protecting data by improving quality of stego image based on enhanced reduced difference expansion

In this era of internet development, security of information sharing is the main problem faced by human being. Data hiding technique is one of the solutions. However, hiding credential information within a multimedia file such as image reduces its visual quality. Therefore, unauthorized users may suspect the existance of secret data within that image. In the past years, various data hiding algorithms have been developed by researchers to overcome the problem of high distortion of image after data embedding process. Achieving a high quality stego image, however, is still a challenging problem. In this paper, we proposed a new data hiding algorithm based on different expansion. It aims to enhance the quality of stego image for a given payload size. The new algorithm is evaluated on various medical images. Thereafter, the experimental results show that the visual quality is improved; and increasing the embedding capacity leads to more noises. Therefore, a better choice of base point and a reduced difference expansion affect the quality of stego image.