1. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing a software program operable to cause an apparatus including a processor operating under the instructions of the software program to perform actions, comprising: preprocessing an original pixel domain image to modify any data plotted at extremes of an ordinate axis of the original pixel domain image; applying an image transformation to the preprocessed pixel domain image to obtain a matrix of coefficients; selecting at least one bit plane between a least significant bit plane and a most significant bit plane of the matrix of coefficients; compressing the at least one selected bit plane to produce free space in the at least one selected bit plane; embedding hidden data in the free space of the at least one compressed bit plane; and operating on the at least one embedded bit plane and other bit planes with an inverse of the image transformation to produce a marked pixel domain image.