Abstract The visual secret sharing for multiple secrets (VSSM) allows for the encryption of a greater number of secret images into a given image area. Previous researches on VSSM schemes incur a very serious pixel expansion that will damage capable of increasing the capacity of secret image encryption. Moreover, the most of VSSM schemes will decrease the contrast of recover images while the amount of secret image encryption increases. These drawbacks limit applicability of the existing VSSM schemes. In this paper, we propose a highly efficient encryption algorithm to cope with this problem. The proposed algorithm adopts a novel hybrid encryption approach that includes a VC-based encryption and a camouflaging process. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach not only can increase the capacity efficient for VSSM schemes, but also maintains an excellent level of contrast in the recovered secret images.