A novel approach to secret image sharing based on a (k,n)-threshold scheme with the additional capability of share data reduction is proposed. A secret image is first transformed into the frequency domain using the discrete cosine transform (DCT), which is applied in most compression schemes. Then all the DCT coefficients except the first 10 lower frequency ones are discarded. And the values of the 2nd through the 10th coefficients are disarranged in such a way that they cannot be recovered without the first coefficient and that the inverse DCT of them cannot reveal the details of the original image. Finally, the first coefficient is encoded into a number of shares for a group of secret-sharing participants and the remaining nine manipulated coefficients are allowed to be accessible to the public. The overall effect of this scheme is achievement of effective secret sharing with good reduction of share data. The scheme is thus suitable for certain application environments, such as the uses of mobile or handheld devices, where only a small amount of network traffic for shared transmission and a small amount of space for data storage are allowed. Good experimental results proving the feasibility of the proposed approach are also included.
