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Image Color Inverter
Invert an image's colours to their opposite — a photographic negative — by flipping each channel around 255. Downloads as a lossless PNG.
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Quick Answer
Drop in an image and every pixel's colours are inverted — each red, green and blue value is replaced by 255 minus itself. White becomes black, red becomes cyan, and the picture looks like a photographic negative. It is mathematically exact and perfectly reversible: invert twice and you are back to the original. The result downloads as a lossless PNG, made in your browser.
What the Image Color Inverter Does
This flips an image's colours to their opposites, producing a negative. Each colour channel is replaced by 255 minus its value, so bright turns dark, dark turns bright, and every hue maps to its complementary colour.
Because the maths is a simple, exact subtraction, the operation loses nothing. Invert an inverted image and you get the original back, pixel for pixel.
How It Works
Drop or pick an image. It is drawn onto a canvas in your browser.
For every pixel, each of the red, green and blue channels is replaced by 255 minus its value. The alpha channel is left untouched, so transparency is kept.
Download saves a lossless PNG. The canvas re-encode also strips EXIF and GPS metadata.
Processing pipeline
- Decode locally. Your image is drawn onto a canvas in the browser — never uploaded.
- Read the pixels. The red, green and blue values are pulled from the canvas.
- Subtract from 255. Each channel is replaced by 255 minus its value, mapping every colour to its opposite.
- Export the PNG. The inverted canvas is saved as a lossless PNG with your original base name.
Colour inversion (per channel)
R' = 255 − R
G' = 255 − G
B' = 255 − BWorked example
White (255, 255, 255) becomes black (0, 0, 0); pure red (255, 0, 0) becomes cyan (0, 255, 255).Each channel is flipped around the midpoint, so every colour maps to its complementary opposite — red to cyan, green to magenta, blue to yellow. Invert twice and you are back to the original, with zero loss.
Privacy
Your image is processed entirely in your browser and never uploaded — there is no server.
The canvas re-encode strips all EXIF and GPS metadata, so the inverted PNG carries no camera or location tags.
No account, no stored copy; close the tab and nothing remains.
Technical Details
| Operation | Per-channel invert (255 minus value) |
|---|---|
| Output format | PNG (lossless) |
| Reversible | Yes — invert twice for the original |
| Transparency | Preserved (alpha untouched) |
| Dimensions | Unchanged |
| Metadata | EXIF/GPS stripped |
| Processing | 100% in-browser |
Standards & references
- Colour inversion — The standard digital negative: each channel becomes 255 minus its value, mapping every colour to its complementary opposite.
- Complementary pairs — In RGB the opposites are red and cyan, green and magenta, blue and yellow; white and black are opposites too.
Accuracy & Limitations
The inversion is mathematically exact and lossless. Because it is a pure subtraction, inverting an image twice returns the original bit for bit.
It inverts each channel independently in RGB. That gives the familiar negative look, but it is not a perceptual or hue-based recolouring — it is the literal arithmetic opposite of each channel.
Transparency is preserved, because only the colour channels change; the alpha channel is left alone.
The output is a lossless PNG at the original dimensions. File size is similar to the original, since the same amount of detail is present, just inverted.
Real-World Use Cases
Read a film negative
Invert a scanned photographic negative to see the positive image.
Boost faint detail
Flip colours to make low-contrast features — as in some X-ray or scan viewing — easier to read.
Design and art effects
Create a striking negative version of a graphic or photo.
Light-on-dark conversion
Turn black-text-on-white artwork into white-on-black, and back again.
When to use it — and when not to
Good for
- Making a photographic negative or positive
- Reversible, lossless colour flipping
- Quick negative effects for design
Not the best choice for
- Adjusting specific hues or saturation
- Removing colour — that is grayscale
- Recolouring to a chosen palette
To remove colour entirely use the grayscale converter; for a pure two-tone image use the black-and-white converter.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does inverting colours do?
It replaces each pixel's red, green and blue with 255 minus their values, flipping every colour to its opposite. White becomes black, red becomes cyan, and the image looks like a photographic negative.
Is the inversion reversible?
Yes, perfectly. Because it is an exact subtraction, inverting an already-inverted image returns the original, pixel for pixel, with no quality loss.
What colour does red become?
Cyan. In RGB the complementary pairs are red and cyan, green and magenta, and blue and yellow. Each colour maps to its opposite when inverted.
Does it keep transparency?
Yes. Only the colour channels are inverted; the alpha channel is untouched, so transparent areas stay transparent.
Is this a true photographic negative?
It is the digital equivalent — each channel flipped around 255. Scanning a film negative and inverting it here gives you the positive image, and vice versa.
What format do I get?
A PNG, saved with your original base name. PNG is lossless, so no compression artefacts are added.
Does it resize my image?
No. The dimensions are unchanged; only the colours are flipped.
Will the file size change much?
Not really. The inverted image holds the same amount of detail as the original, so the PNG is a similar size.
Does it strip EXIF and GPS data?
Yes. The canvas re-encode removes all metadata, so the inverted PNG has no camera or location tags.
Is my image uploaded?
No. The inversion runs entirely in your browser, with no server and nothing stored.
Is inverting the same as a complementary colour scheme?
It produces complementary colours channel by channel, which is close but not a designer's colour-theory palette. It is the literal arithmetic opposite of each pixel, not a curated scheme.
Can I invert only part of the image?
No. The whole image is inverted. To affect only a region, crop it first, invert, and recombine in an editor.
References
Inverts every pixel with the standard formula 255 minus the channel value, turning each colour into its complementary opposite; the result is a lossless PNG, the operation is perfectly reversible, and it all runs in your browser.
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