F42022628

P.Kavipriya et al Int. Journal of Engineering Research and Applications
ISSN : 2248-9622, Vol. 4, Issue 2( Version 2), February 2014, pp.26-28

RESEARCH ARTICLE

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OPEN ACCESS

Color Secret Image Encryption and Share Generation for
Multiple-Secret Threshold Visual Cryptography
P. Kavipriya M.E1, Dr. M. Sangeetha 2
1

Student, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore,
Tamil Nadu -641014
2
Assistant Professor (sr.gr),Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Coimbatore Institute of
Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu -641014

ABSTRACT
Visual Cryptography Scheme (VCS) is a type of secret sharing scheme which allows the encoding of a secret
image into n shares that distributed to n participants. Each share constitutes some information and when k shares
out of n stack together the secret will reveal. However; less than k shares are not work. The advantage of the
visual secret sharing scheme is its decryption process i.e. to decrypt the secret using Human Visual System
without any computation. Traditional Visual Cryptography suffers from share identification problem. This
problem can be solved by Multiple-Secret threshold visual cryptography (MVCS), which adds a meaningful
cover image in each share. The proposed work presents threshold Visual cryptographic schemes in Color
Images. This method uses half toning method to provide color image as a secret image. Then the secret image
can be embedded in the original image by generating shares using Zigzags scanning method. Experimental
result of proposed system provides robust security than conventional visual cryptographic schemes.
Keywords – Visual cryptography, Halftoning,Zig-Zag scanning.

I.

INTRODUCTION

With the rapid evolution of communication
technologies and computer networks, huge extents of
digital data have been transmitted over the internet.
However, transmission of secret data over an open
channel can be easily forged, interfered or attacked
by intruders. For security purpose, secret data is
encrypted before transmission.
Thus, the design of secret sharing schemes
allows the secret to be shared among a group of
participants has become an important research topic
in modern security.The concept of threshold secret
sharing was first proposed by Shamir and Blakley
independently in 1979.
Visual cryptography (VC) was first
proposed by Naorand Shamir at Eurocrypt‟94. A
visual secret sharing (VSS) scheme deals with the
visual version of secret sharing where the shared
secret is in the form of an image, the encoded shares
are stamped on shares also called as transparencies,
and the decoding process becomes the human visual
recognition to the superimposed transparencies. Any
set of shares reveals the secret image to the user
when they are stacked together whereas any set of
less than original reveals no information of the secret.

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Figure 1: Threshold Visual cryptography
Fig. 1 shows a secret mage “CRYPT”
creates a shares using (2,2)-threshold VSS scheme
used to share the secret image „„As shown in figure 1,
(b) and (c) gives meaningless shares. The secret
image „„CRYPT” cannot be revealed by others with
the obtained shares. Finally the secret image is
revealed by the user by stacking the corresponding
share which is shown in Fig1 (d).

II.

RELATED WORK

Recently, various studies about visual
cryptography are proposed. The following General
access structures have been used for visual
cryptographic schemes for generating shares.
In [1],(2,n)-Threshold VCS is used .This
encrypts the secret image into n number of shares
such that any two shares can be combined then
reveals the secret image. In [2].(n,n)-Threshold VCS
is used. In this the secret image can be encrypted into
n shares such that when all n shares are combined
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together reveals the secret image. In [3],(k,n)Threshold VCS is used. In this the secret image can
be encrypted into n shares such that when any group
of at least k shares are stacked which reveals the
secret image.
All the above mentioned schemes focus on
sharing only one secret image. In practical
applications and complexity in theoretical interests,
multiple secret images can be shared, in which
different combinations of shares reconstruct different
secrets, which is a challenging topic in the research.
The studies in this literature can be classified into two
categories: direct superimposition and additional
operation before superimposition. In that first one
stacks are directly superimposed each other. In the
second one [4] [5] before superimposition, at least
one of the share is made to take any operation such as
rotating, turning before stacking.
At present, the research on the first category
is comparatively less than the second one. Mostly,
the second category has achieved the sharing of any
general secrets [5], [6], [7], whereas the first category
has only involved the sharing of two secrets [8].

III.

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3.2.1 Zig-Zag scanning Algorithm
Zig –Zag scanning algorithm takes 2Dimensional secret image matrix A, of size mX
n.The elements of Aare 0‟s and 1‟s. 0 represents the
black pixels And 1 represents White pixels. Zig-Zag
scanning is applied on secret image to convert 2Dimentional image matrix of size mX n to 1Dimensional vector of size 1 X m*n. By using this
method original pixels adjacency connectivity of an
image are demolished. The neighbouring pixels in the
2-Dimensional image are broadly separated in the 1Dimensional data. By doing this partial pattern of an
image gets prevented from creeping into the shares.
3.2.2 Share –Generation Algorithm
In this algorithm, the input is taken from the
output of the zigzag method i.e., 1-D data. The output
of this algorithm produces two or more non
expandable shares. One of the on-expandable shares
is stacked by performing rotation operation with
other shares. The shares are then flipped and rotated
90 degree in clockwise direction. As a result the
robust shares are generated with the encoded secret
message.

PROPOSED SYSTEM

The proposed framework uses half toning
method for producing color secret image. This can be
done by using Zig-Zag scanning methods in which it
embeds the secret message in the original image by
without expanding the pixels in the original image. In
order to provide security for shares, cover images can
be added on the shares by using watermarking
technique.
3.1 Half toning
The proposed system uses color image as
secret image by using Half toning method. So, before
encryption of secret images to original image, half
toning method can be applied. In this phase, the color
secret image can be decomposed into three color
planes Red(R), Green (G), Blue (B).In These planes
were converted into C, M,Y planes. Then Halftone
operation is carried out on each planes of C, M,Y
separately. Then Halftoned C,M,Y planes is
submitted to the encryptor.During Hlaftoning,
greyscale images are converted into binary images. In
color image, each color planes is a grayscale
image.After halftone operation three binary images
are obtained.

IV.

EXPERIMENTAL RESULT

To The proposed method can be evaluated
by using MATLAB and tested with several images.
The proposed system estimates the quality of the
image with the pixel expansion and no pixel
expansion. Compared with other visual cryptographic
scheme, The proposed scheme lets the users to
choose of color images with color levels in the
reconstructed images based on the desired image
quality. The following images show the generated
output images.
The three secret images (SI) are shown below:

SI 1

SI2
Figure 2: Secret images

SI3

The images in figure 2 show the secret
images. Then three RGB planes of this above secret
image is shown below.

3.2 Encoding phase
The encoding process consists of two stages:
1. Zig-Zag scanning Algorithm
2. Share Generation Algorithm
Red-SI1
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Green-SI1
Figure 3: RGB planes

Blue-SI1
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The above figure 3shows the RGB planes of
secret image 1.Similarly RGB planes of other secret
image can be taken.

Cyan-SI1
Magenta-SI1
Yellow-SI1
Figure 4: CMY planes
The above figure 4 shows the CMY planes
of RGB Secret image 1.Similarly CMY of other three
secret images is taken.

method is used provides non-expandable shares in
which no –pixels are expanded during secret image
embedding process. Thus the transmission of data
needs only less storage spaces. Additional operation
on shares such as flipping or rotation of shares can be
done. By this the shares can be secured and prevented
from attacks by the attackers. Thus the proposed
method provides desired image quality after
extraction of secret image and cover image.

REFERENCES
[1]

[2]

[3]

Figure 5: Halftoned secret image

[4]

The above figure 5 shows the half toned
image of first secret image. Similarly the other two
secret images can be generated.

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

Figure 6: Shares of secret image

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P. A. Eisen and D. R. Stinson, “Threshold
visual cryptography schemes with specified
whiteness
levels
of
reconstructed
pixels,”Designs, Codes and Cryptography,
vol. 25, pp. 15–61, 2002.
M. Naor and A. Shamir, “Visual
cryptography,”
Adv.
Cryptography:Eurocrypt‟94, Lecture Notes
in Computer Sci., vol. 950, pp. 1–12,1995,
Springer
G. Ateniese, C. Blundo, A. De. Santis, and
D. R. Stinson, “Extended capabilities for
visual cryptography,” Theoretical Computer
Sci., vol.250, pp. 143–161, 2001.
S. J. Shyu and K. Chen, “Visual multiple
secret sharing based upon turning and
flipping,” Inf. Sci., vol. 181, pp. 3246–3266,
2011.
S. J. Shyu and K. Chen, “Visual multiple
secrets sharing by circle random grids,”
SIAM J. Image. Sci., vol. 3, pp. 926–953,
2010.
S. J. Shyu, S.-Y. Huang, Y.-K. Lee, R.Z.Wang, and K. Chen, “Sharing multiple
secrets in visual cryptography,” Pattern
Recognit., vol. 40, pp.3633–3651, 2007
C.-N. Yang and T.-H. Chung, “A general
multi-secret visual cryptography scheme,”
Opt. Commun., vol. 283, pp. 4949–4962,
2010.
T. Katoh and H. Imai, “An extended
construction method for visual secret
sharing schemes,” Electron. Commun. Jpn.
(Part III: Fundamental Electronic Science),
vol. 81, pp. 55–63, 1998.

The above figure 6 shows the generated
shares of secret image 1 by using Zigzag scanning
method. Similarly corresponding shares of other
secret image can be generated.

V.

CONCLUSION

In this paper, an improved phase of
threshold –visual cryptography is proposed. Half
toning method used in this gives color secret message
to be embedded in the original image. Then zigzag
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