Steganography and data encryption in images using contrast stretching and AES encryption

Janu, Neha; Singhal, Sunita; Bhardwaj, Puneet

doi:10.47974/JDMSC-2339

Open Access Research Article

Steganography and data encryption in images using contrast stretching and AES encryption

Neha Januneha.janu@jaipur.manipal.eduDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering Manipal University Jaipur Department of Computer Science and Engineering Manipal University JaipurJaipur, Rajasthan, 303007, IndiaView full profile → , ^*Sunita SinghalCorresponding authorsunita.singhal@jaipur.manipal.eduDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering Manipal University JaipurDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering Manipal University JaipurJaipur, Rajasthan, 303007, IndiaView full profile → , Puneet Bhardwajpuneet.219301298@muj.manipal.eduDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering Manipal University Jaipur Jaipur, Rajasthan, 303007, IndiaView full profile →

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pp. 2551–2559Vol. 28Issue 6September 2025DOI: 10.47974/JDMSC-2339 Crossmark XML

Received:: 06 Mar 2024
Published Online:: 09 Jul 2025
Article type:: Research Article
Language:: EN
Article no.:: JDMSC-2339
Pages:: 2551–2559

Abstract

Steganography is an important technique in data security, and its purpose is to hide text, especially images, in another environment. This paper presents a new method that uses variable stretching to identify low areas in images to ensure low noise during data acquisition. Private measurements are encrypted using Advanced Encryption Standard and stored in image metadata, ensuring the security and integrity of confidential information. The proposed algorithm is tested on 100 images and achieve 50 percentage increase in embedding capacity and improvement in robustness against attacks such as noise and compression. 30 percentage improvement in PSNR that indicates the better image quality and MSE. That insures the minimal degradation. The proposed method scores over LSB, FFT and DCT algorithms.

Keywords

Image steganography Contrast stretching and AES encryption

Subject Classifications

Primary 68M25Secondary 68T01

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