What it does
Inverts every pixel value in your image. Each color channel (red, green, blue) gets flipped: 0 becomes 255, 100 becomes 155, etc. The result is a photographic negative, what you’d see if you held film up to the light.
The “alpha channel” toggle decides whether transparency also inverts. For most cases you want it OFF (transparent stays transparent). Turn it ON if you specifically need transparency to flip too.
When to use this
- Designing dark-mode versions of light icons: a black-on-white logo becomes white-on-black after inversion. Quick way to mock dark mode without redrawing.
- Photographic art effects: negatives can look striking when used intentionally. Combine with grayscale for true black-and-white film negative look.
- Vintage scans: if you scanned a film negative directly, inversion produces the positive image.
- Accessibility testing: how does your UI look with inverted colors? Helps spot cases where contrast inversion breaks.
How color inversion works
Each pixel has values for red, green, blue (and sometimes alpha). The inverted value is 255 - original. So pure black (0, 0, 0) becomes pure white (255, 255, 255). Mid-gray stays mid-gray. Red (255, 0, 0) becomes cyan (0, 255, 255).
The math is the same for all formats, JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF all invert identically. The difference is just how the file is encoded. PNG preserves alpha cleanly; JPEG doesn’t have alpha and just inverts RGB.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my inverted image look different from Photoshop’s? This filter inverts in sRGB space (the standard for web). Photoshop offers both sRGB and linear-light inversion options. Linear inversion produces slightly different results, particularly in midtones. For web work, sRGB inversion is correct.
Can I invert just one color channel? Not in this tool. For red-only or green-only inversion, you’d need a more advanced tool like GIMP or Photoshop with channel-specific operations.
Does this work on SVG? SVG isn’t pixel-based, its inversion would need to recolor every fill/stroke property, not just flip pixels. This tool handles raster images (PNG, JPEG, WebP) but not SVG.
Is the inversion lossless? For PNG output, yes, fully lossless. For JPEG, the inversion math is exact but the JPEG re-encoding adds compression artifacts.