Reversible Data Hiding Associated with Digital Halftoning That Allows Printing with Special Color Ink by Using Single Color Layer

We propose an efficient framework of reversible data hiding to preserve compatibility between normal printing and printing with a special color ink by using a single common image. The special color layer is converted to a binary image by digital halftoning and losslessly compressed using JBIG2. Then, the compressed information of the binarized special color layer is reversibly embedded into the general color layer without significant distortion. Our experimental results show the availability of the proposed method in terms of the marked image quality.