Reversible Data Hiding in JPEG Images with Multi-Objective Optimization

Among various methods of reversible data hiding (RDH) in JPEG images, only rate-distortion, i.e. the image quality with given payload, is taken into consideration during algorithm designing. However, file size expansion is another important evaluation metric for JPEG RDH methods. Based on this situation, we propose a JPEG RDH method considering both the rate-distortion and the file size expansion at the same time while designing the algorithm. The multi-objective optimization strategy is utilized to realize the balance of the two objectives. Specifically, the cover signal is divided into several non-overlapping parts firstly, and after that, the embedding costs of each part are calculated. Next, the optimized combination of parts for embedding data is gained by multi-objective optimization. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of rate-distortion and file size expansion performance.