cryptography is study of transforming information in order to make it secure from unintended recipients. Visual Cryptography Scheme (VCS) is a cryptography method that encrypts any information [picture, printed text, etc] such that decryption can be perform ed using human visual system. The goal of this survey paper is to give the readers an overview of the basic visual cryptography schemes constructions,as well as the new techniques derived from VCS.We also review some applications that take advantage of such secure schemes.