As Internet technology continues to profoundly impact our lives, techniques for information protection have become increasingly advanced and become a common discussion topic. With the aim to protect private images, this paper splits a secret image into n individual shares using a Sudoku matrix with authentication features. Later, the shares can be compiled to completely reconstruct the secret image. The shares are meaningful ones in order to avoid detection and suspicion among malicious users. Our proposed matrix is unique because the embedding rate of the secret data is very high, while the visual quality of the shares can be well guaranteed. In addition, the embedded authentication codes can be retrieved to authenticate the integrity of the secret image. Experimental results prove the advantages of our approach in terms of visual quality and authentication ability.