Qt QImage pixel manipulation problems

Question

I'm currently in the process of writing a steganography application with Qt. I am trying to hide my message bits in the least significant bit of the blue colour of the pixel.

From debugging I can tell that this section is working as it should. However after hiding my bits in the message I then save the image and then reopen it. This is where the problem develops.

When I read in the (reopened) image the scanLines that I read in are not the same as the ones I wrote previously, and I can't figure out why. Maybe it's just me being stupid, or maybe I'm missing something. Any help would be much appreciated.

The code I have so far is as follows

void MainWindow::Encrypt(QImage image, QString message) {
    if(image.isNull()) {
        qDebug() << "PROBLEM";
    }

    image = image.convertToFormat(QImage::Format_ARGB32);

    QVector<bool> bvec;
    QByteArray bytes = message.toAscii();
    char mask;
    QRgb tempPix;

    for(int i = 0; i < bytes.size(); i++) {
        for(int j = 0; j < 8; j++) {
            mask = (0x01 << j);
            bvec.push_back((bytes[i] & mask) == mask);
        }
    }

    if(image.height() < bvec.size()) {
        qDebug() << "Not enough space in image";
    }

    for(int j = 0; j < bvec.size(); j++) {
        QRgb *pixel = (QRgb *)image.scanLine(j);
        tempPix = *pixel;
        int blue = qBlue(tempPix);

        blue &= 0xFE;
        blue |= (bvec[j] == 1) ? 0x01 : 0x00;
        *pixel = qRgba(qRed(tempPix), qGreen(tempPix), blue, qAlpha(tempPix));
    }

    if(image.save(filename) != true) {
       emit addToStatusLog("Did not save. Error");
    }   
}

void MainWindow::Decrypt(QImage image) {
    char temp = 0x00;
    qint8 mask = 0x01;
    QVector<bool> bvec;
    QRgb *pixel;
    int blue;

    image = image.convertToFormat(QImage::Format_ARGB32);

    for(int i = 0; i < image.height(); i++) {
        pixel = (QRgb *)image.scanLine(i);
        blue = qBlue(*pixel);
        bvec.push_back((blue & mask) == mask);
    }

     for(int j = 0; j < bvec.size(); j++) {
        if(j % 8 == 0 && j != 0) {
            qDebug() << temp;
            temp = 0x00;
        }
        temp |= (bvec[j]) ? (0x01 << (j%8)) : 0x00;
    }

    qDebug() << temp;
}

Thanks

Answer 1

Make sure you're not saving using a lossy format, such as JPEG.