Secret communication in colored images using saliency map as model

Steganography is a process that involves hiding a message in an appropriate carrier for example an image or an audio file. Many algorithms have been proposed for this purpose in spatial & frequency domain. But in almost all the algorithms it has been noticed that as one embeds the secret data in the image certain characteristics or statistics of the image get disturbed. To deal with this problem another paradigm named as adaptive steganography exists which is based upon some mathematical model. Visual system of human beings does not process the complete area of image rather focus upon limited area of visual image. But in which area does the visual attention focused is a topic of hot research nowadays. Research on psychological phenomenon indicates that attention is attracted to features that differ from its surroundings or the one that are unusual or unfamiliar to the human visual system. Object or region based image processing can be performed more efficiently with information pertaining locations that are visually salient to human perception with the aid of a saliency map. So saliency map may act as model for adaptive steganography in images. Keeping this in view, a novel steganography technique based upon saliency map has been proposed in this work.