User-friendly visual secret sharing for color images based on random grids

Abstract

A user-friendly visual secret sharing scheme without pixel expansion is presented for color images based on random grids. Since noise like shares are not user-friendly, a meaningful shares producing method can simplify mass data management. Firstly, black and white pixels distribution in shared images and stack image will be analyzed. Then, in order to control the quality of produced shared images and stack image a probability allocation plan will be proposed. In former methods there was a quality tradeoff between meaningful shares and stack image, but the proposed method increases tradeoff flexibility. Moreover the inability to adjust the visual quality is reduced by the proposed visual secret sharing scheme. The suggested method will be checked and compared to other schemes.