How to invert the color of an image on Windows PC

This tutorial shows how to invert the color of an image. When we say, inverting the color of an image, we mean making the negative of an image. When it comes to inverting the color of an image, there are plenty of options available. You can use Microsoft Paint or other free software and online tools for the same. In this article, we will talk about different options to invert the color of an image.

How do I invert colors on a picture?

You can use Microsoft Paint to invert the colors of a picture. Apart from that, there are several free software and online tools available that let you invert the colors of your image for free.

We have listed some free software and online tools to invert the color of an image below in this article.

How to invert the color of an image in Windows 11/10

If you want to learn how to invert the color of an image using PowerPoint, Word, Paint, free software or online tools in Windows 11/10 PC, this article will help you. In the older versions of Microsoft Word, there was an option to invert the color of an image. But unfortunately, the Invert color option is not available in the later versions of Microsoft Word. In Word and PowerPoint, you can change the colors of an image but cannot make a negative of the image. You will find the options to change the color of an image under Artistic Effects in Word and PowerPoint.

You can invert the color of an image on your Windows 11/10 PC by using:

Microsoft Paint
Color Filters in Windows
Free software
Free online tools
Free Microsoft Store app.

Let’s start.

1] How to invert the color of an image using Microsoft Paint

Microsoft Paint is a powerful image editing software from Microsoft. It is available for both Windows 10 and Windows 11 users. It also has an option to invert the color of an image.

The following steps will help you invert the color of an image by using Paint:

Open Microsoft Paint.
Go to “File > Open” or simply press Ctrl + O keys to open an image in Paint.
Press Ctrl + A keys to select the entire image.
Now, right-click on the image and select the Invert color option.

This will invert the color of the image. After inverting the color, you can save it by using the Save As option.

Read: How to Invert Colors in Photoshop

2] How to invert the color of an image using Color Filters in Windows 11/10

Windows 11/10 come with Color Filters that are designed for color blind people. You can enable and disable the color filters in Settings. You can use this feature to invert the color of an image.

We have explained the procedure to invert the color of an image using Color Filters for both Windows 11 and Windows 10 users separately.

Windows 11

Windows 11 users have to follow the below-written steps:

Right-click on Start and select Settings.
Go to “Accessibility > Color Filters.”
Turn the Color Filters on and then select Inverted. This will invert all the colors of your PC.
Now, open the image and press the Prt Sc button to take its screenshot. This will copy the image to the Windows 11 clipboard.
Turn off the Color Filters, launch Paint, or any other image editing software.
Paste the copied image and crop it.
Save the cropped image.

Windows 10

If you are a Windows 10 user, follow the below-listed steps:

Right-click on Start and select Settings.
Click Ease of Access.
Select Color Filters from the left side.
Turn on the Color Filters and select Inverted.
Now, open the image to invert its color and take its screenshot by pressing the Prt Sc key. This will copy the image to the Windows 10 clipboard.
Open any image editing software, like Paint, and paste the copied image there.
Crop the image and save it on your PC.

Do note that, you have to take the screenshot by using the Prt Sc key only. If you take the screenshot by using the Snipping tool (Win + Shift + S), it will not work.

3] How to invert the color of an image using free software

Let’s see some free software to invert the color of an image. There are plenty of free image inverting software available on the internet. We are listing some of them here.

IrfanView

IrfanView is one of the popular image editing software available for Windows. In addition to creating the negative of an image, it offers a lot of features. It also has free plugins that you can install for advanced image editing work. Apart from general features like rotating and flipping the image, it offers some advanced features. It comes with a built-in image conversion tool that lets you convert bulk images from one format into another. Some of these image formats are BMP, JPG, PDF, PNG, TIF, etc. You can also insert a watermark to your images.

To invert the color of an image using IrfanView, go through the following instructions:

Open IrfanView.
Go to “File > Open” and select the image to open in IrfanView.
Now, go to “Image > Negative (invert image) > All channels.” After that, IrfanView will invert the colors of the image.
To save the negative image, go to “File > Save As.”

Paint.NET

Paint.NET is another free software that comes with a lot of features along with inverting the colors of an image. Using this freeware, you can add different artistic effects to your images, make them blur, add noise to the images, and more. The option to invert the color of an image is available in the Adjustments menu.

The following steps will guide you on how to invert the color of an image using Paint.NET.

Open Paint.NET.
Press Ctrl + O keys and open an image in Paint.NET.
Go to “Adjustments > Invert Colors” or press Ctrl + Shift + I keys to invert the color of the image.
Go to “File > Save As” to save the negative image in the desired format.

Paint.NET is available as a Windows installer and a Windows 11/10 app. The latter one is paid. Therefore, you have to download the installer file from its official website.

4] How to invert the color of an image using free online tools

We are listing here some free online tools to invert the color of an image.

Pixelied

Pixelied is a free online tool that you can use to invert the colors of an image. Using this tool is easy. Visit its official website, pixelied.com, and click on the Upload your image button. After that, the website will open the image editor tool, where you can do more than just inverting the color of your image, like making the image blur, pixelating the image, adjusting its brightness, contrast, saturation levels, adding text to the image, etc.

To invert the color of your image, click on the Filters tab and then select Invert. After creating the negative of your image, you can download it in different formats, like JPG, PNG, PDF, etc.

Piixelied is available in both free and paid plans. Its free plan comes with some limitations, like basic image editing features, only 3 downloads per month, 1 GB free cloud storage, etc.

Invert Colors Online from PineTools

Invert Colors Online is a simple and straightforward tool to invert the colors of an image. PineTools offers a lot of image editing tools, like flipping an image, changing its contrast and saturation levels, converting the image into grayscale, etc. To use the image color inverter tool, you have to visit pinetools.com, which is the official website of PineTools.

After visiting the website, click on the Choose File button to upload the image. When the image is uploaded, click on the Invert button. After that, you will get your image with inverted colors. You can download the inverted color image in PNG, JPG, and WEBP formats.

5] Invert the colors of an image using a free Microsoft Store app

Those who are looking for a way to invert the colors of an image using a Microsoft Store app can use Polarr. It is a free photo editor tool available for Windows, the web, macOS, etc. While most of its advanced tools are present in the pro/paid plan, the free plan supports the invert effect. Only one export per day is allowed in the free plan but that would work.

To invert image colors using this app, you can grab it from apps.microsoft.com. After that, use the following steps:

Open the app from the Start menu or Search box of your Windows 11/10 computer
Use the Open photos option or drag n drop an image or photo from a folder to its interface
On the right-hand section, click on the Adjustments menu. You can also press the A key for this
Click on the Effects option
Scroll down the list of available effects
Use the Invert option. This will immediately apply the change and you can see that in the image visible on its interface
Press the Save Photo icon available in the top-right corner
A small box will appear. There, switch to the IMAGE section
Select JPEG, PNG, or TIFF option
Use the Resize option (optional)
Click on the Save copy button and then you can save the output image to a folder of your choice.

Hope these options will help.

How do you invert colors on a picture in Windows 11/10?

To invert the colors on a picture on Windows 11/10, you can use Microsoft Paint software. Apart from that, you can also use the Color Filters feature of Windows 11 and Windows 10 for the same. If you can install the third-party software on your system, you can download free programs like IrfanView, Paint.NET, etc. The users who do not want to install any third-party software can use free online tools to invert the color of an image.

What is the easiest way to invert colors on a picture?

It is too difficult to say what is the easiest way to invert colors on a picture. But, there are certainly some good and free options available to make a negative of an image. If you are a Windows 11/10 user, then there are built-in options, online tools, and software available to use to invert the colors of an image. This post includes a list of all such tools and options. Check them.

That’s it.