Extended squared magic matrix for embedding secret information with large payload

Data hiding is a technology designed for safely transmitting secret data through open communication channels, in which the secret data are embedded into a cover carrier imperceptibly. Among the existing data hiding schemes, the exploiting-modification-direction (EMD) based schemes draw considerable attentions due to large embedding capacity. The proposed scheme improves the EMD-2 scheme by constructing an extended squared magic matrix, resulting in a larger embedding capacity high up to 3.15 bits per pixel (bpp). Experimental results show that the proposed scheme outperforms state-of-the-art reference matrix based schemes in terms of embedding capacity, meanwhile, maintains good image quality.