Abstract
This paper presents a new algorithm for color image based steganography. Our algorithm adaptively determines the number of secret message bits that each pixel of cover image can store based on a partition scheme of the range of color intensity. This vibrant scheme is found to offer high capacity and security for the cover media. We also introduce a new approach for spreading the secret message over the whole cover image to reduce distortion in the resulting stego image. This data-spreading technique can be extremely effective in improving the security of the stego-system. The proposed method adaptively selects the best partition scheme of color values to spread the message most and increase security. Experimental analysis shows the effectiveness of our algorithm with very attractive results.