A (k, n) visual cryptography (VC) scheme encodes a secret image into n shadows that are printed on transparencies distributed among a group of n participants secretly, and reveal the secret image by stacking no less than k of them. Its decryption requires no computation and attracts much attention in image security applications. The pixel expansion and contrast are two important characteristics to evaluate the visual quality of the revealed secret image for a (k, n)-VC scheme. The (k, n) XOR-based VC (XVC) schemes can greatly improve the visual quality including both pixel expansion and contrast. Previous methods require complex computation and result in high pixel expansion when they are used to construct such schemes. In this paper, we propose a pixel expansion adjustable (k, n)-XVC scheme, which allows pixel expansion to be changed among 2 k−1 − 1 different values. It can ensure each pixel being exactly recovered with the same average contrast no matter it takes any pixel expansion value. The least pixel expansion is much smaller than previous schemes. Our scheme can be easily implemented based on any conventional OR-based (k, n)-VC (OVC) scheme.

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