This paper presents a reliable image secret sharing method which incorporates two k-out-of-n secret sharing schemes: i) Shamir's secret sharing scheme and ii) matrix projection secret sharing scheme. The technique allows a colored secret image to be divided as n image shares so that: i) any k image shares (k \leqslant n) are sufficient to reconstruct the secret image in the lossless manner and ii) any (k - 1) or fewer image shares cannot get enough information to reveal the secret image. It is an effective, reliable and secure method to prevent the secret image from being lost, stolen or corrupted. In comparison with other image secret sharing methods, this approach's advantages are its large compression rate on the size of the image shares, its strong protection of the secret image and its ability for the realtime processing.