Encrypting image by assembling the fractal-image addition method and the binary encoding method

The fractal-image addition method and the binary encoding method are assembled to form a hybrid method for encrypting a digital covert image. For this hybrid method, a host image is used to create an overt image with the information of the covert image. First, the fractal-image addition method is used to add some fractal images and the covert image to form an image-mixing matrix. Then, all the pixel values of the image-mixing matrix are transferred into binary data. Finally, the binary data are encoded into the host image to create an overt image. The pixels of the overt image contain eight groups of codes used for reconstructing the covert image. The eight groups of codes are identification codes, row amount codes, covert-image dimension codes, fractal-image amount codes, starting-pixel codes, character amount codes, character codes, and information codes. The overt image and the host image look almost the same for eyes. Furthermore, the covert image can be directly reconstructed from the overt image without using the host image. The most important feature is that the reconstructed covert image is identical to the original covert image, i.e. there is no distortion in the decoding work.