Color image encryption using double random phase encoding

A new encryption technique is proposed to encrypt color images using existing optical encryption systems for gray-scale images. The color images are converted to their indexed image formats before they are encoded. At the decryption end, the color images are recovered by converting the decrypted indexed images back to their RGB formats. The proposed single-channel color image encryption method is more compact and robust than the multichannels methods. Since color information is added to the shape information, better verification performance can be achieved in optical security systems.