5 Ways to Effortlessly Invert Image Color without Third-Party Apps

In this post, I will show you 5 different methods to invert image color without third-party apps. Namely, convert a positive photo to a negative one. You can choose any of these methods to use on your Windows PC, Mac, iPhone, or Android phone. 

Invert Colors on a Picture Online

If you only need to convert image color once in a while, the online method seems to be quite convenient. You can do it on any of your devices as long as you have an internet connection and a web browser. There are many free online tools that allow you to invert colors on images. Among them, I recommend Pinetools’ Invert Colors Online.

Once you get to the tool page, you can choose a file from your local storage and click the Invert button to get started. Then you can save the negative image in PNG, JPG, or WebP. For mobile devices, you can bookmark the online tool and add it to your Home screen for quick access. 

How to Invert Colors on a Picture on iPhone

After the release of the Shortcuts app by Apple, many people have made their own custom shortcuts for automation. There is an Invert Image Color shortcut using CSS to invert colors on images offline. Since Shortcuts is more like a system-level app, you can run it from any image Share Sheet to invert colors. Sounds good? Follow the steps below to set it up.

Step 1. Get the Image Color Inversion shortcut from Routinhub. Click the link with Safari on your iPhone to import the shortcut. According to Apple, any shortcut outside of the Shortcuts Gallery is considered untrusted. You should go to Settings to allow untrusted shortcuts if you haven’t added any shared shortcut.

Step 2. Tap on the Share button of any image and select the Image Color Inversion shortcut from Share Sheet. Alternatively, you can open the Shortcuts app and run the shortcut to select an image from your Photo Library to invert the colors on images. 

Step 3. Preview the result and save the inverted image in your Photos app. 

Apple has brought Shortcuts app to macOS Monterey. On Mac, you can open this shortcut and check the option “Use as Quick Action” for quick access. 

Invert Colors with MS Paint on Windows

If you use a Windows computer, you can invert the colors of your images using the built-in Paint app. Microsoft Paint is a robust image editing program that offers the ability to reverse an image’s color. It’s available on both Windows 10 and Windows 11. You can refer to the steps below to see how it works. 

Step 1. Open an image with MS Paint. Right click on an image that you want to invert color and select Open With. 

Step 2. After you’ve opened the picture, go to the Ribbon menu at the top and choose Select Option under Home. Then choose All from the drop-down menu. You may also use the Ctrl + A shortcut to select everything.

Step 3. Now, right-click anywhere on the picture and choose Invert Color from the contextual menu that pops up.

Step 4. Go to File > Save As > JPEG picture to save the inverted color image.

You may also invert the color of the Photo by using the Ctrl+Shift+I shortcut. If you want to convert a negative image to positive, you can just repeat the steps above. 

Invert Colors on a Mac using the Preview App

Besides the Shortcuts app, you can also use the Preview App to invert an image’s color in Preview for Mac. Follow these steps below to do it.

Step 1. Preview is the default app to open images on Mac, so you can just double click to open the image file you want to convert.

Step 2. Select “Adjust Color” from the “Tools” option at the bottom of the screen.

Step 3. Drag the “White Point” slider all the way to the left, and drag the “Black Point” slider all the way to the right.

Step 4. By inverting the white and black points in Preview, you may invert the color of a picture on a Mac. When you’re happy with the color inversion, save the picture.

Within the Preview app, you may do additional color modifications if you like. This also works whether you’ve used Preview to convert a photo to black and white, boost color saturation, resize the image, or utilize any of the app’s other color and image adjustment capabilities.

Android App for Image Color Inversion

For Android users, you may use the Negative Image app to produce a negative effect or a color inverted image. Negative Image is a simple and fast tool that lets you add a negative effect to your images or convert negatives to color photos. 

You may also use Negative Image to convert outdated film negatives into genuine photographs. Then, with the press of a button, alter the brightness and contrast. When you upload an image to Negative Image, you can see the inverted results instantly. 

However, the free edition only allows you to invert one image at a time and it contains Ads. You need to upgrade to the Premium version to apply the effect to a group of images at the same time. The premium version allows you to select to flip just a portion of the picture, keeping the rest intact. You may easily share your works on Whatsapp, Facebook, and Instagram.

Conclusion

With these 5 methods, you can invert image color on any device easily. Personally, I like the Shortcuts method the most. You can run it from Share Sheet on iPhone or Quick Actions on Mac. For Android users, I recommend using the online tool over the Negative Image app.