Image Encryption based on the Reflected Binary Code Method with the Combination of FFT

Image encryption is used to protect the data of an image in the most secure way. In this paper, we perform encryption and decryption of the three color planes based on gray code effect and fast Fourier transform. Gray level codes indicate that occurrence of one bit changes from a previous state of current. This process allows the system to detect the error when more than one bit changes occur. It is more efficient than binary bit plane decomposition. The Fourier transform is mainly used to represent the frequency characteristic of a spatial domain image. The color plane scrambling process is done by combining three individual encrypted planes into one composite image. This method which is applicable for any type of image formats as bmp, JPEG, GIF. This paper gives a simple way to scramble the image in unpredictable way. It provides more security than other encryption algorithm. The original images can be retrieved using a correct security key which achieves better results than the other existing methods. By exploiting gray code and Fourier transforms it increases the difficulty of decoding.