Top 7 Apps to Invert Colors on a Photo

Color inversion, also known as negative color, is a fascinating image effect. The math behind the process might sound complicated, but learning how to invert colors on a picture is actually simple. In this article, we review the best color inversion apps for iOS and Android devices.

Learning how to invert a photo can be as simple as knowing which buttons to press. That’s the case with Negative Image, a color inverting app available on iOS and Android. Negative Image does precisely what the name suggests. You can import an image into the app and transform it into a negative color version. 

That’s not all, though. Negative Image has an additional feature that can help take your negative color editing to the next level. You can select specific areas of your photo, and the app will only transform those areas. This can be used to create some interesting effects. Try highlighting the face of a photographed subject and only inverting that, leaving the background untouched.

Negative Me is a lightweight, simple app that lets you invert the color of an image with one tap. You can select a photo from your camera roll or take a new one. Once you have your photo, all you have to do is click the inversion button to invert the color’s image. It really doesn’t get much easier than that.

Negative Me is an excellent option for photographers and film developers who use the Apple ecosystem. It’s available on iPhone, iPad, and even Mac. Of course, you can use Negative Me to invert the color of a photo. However, another use case is for viewing film. Not cinema, but physical film used in classic cameras. Even after being developed, strips of film display photos in negative color. By taking a photo of a film photo and using Negative Me to invert the colors, you can see the true photo in seconds.

You might just need to invert the colors of an image, but what if you decide to go further? If you’re going to download a new app, you might as well grab one that allows you to perform additional edits to your pictures. Enter Snapseed, Google’s mobile photo editing software. You can invert colors, of course, and then do so much more. Snapseed is absolutely packed with editing tools. As well as the basics, like crop, rotate, and white balance, Snapseed provides a wide range of advanced tools, like perspective, healing, and tonal contrast. 

Some of these editing tools can help you take your color inversion game to the next level. Remember, inverting colors is a simple mathematical process that uses the starting color values of each pixel to calculate the output values. Therefore, if you edit the initial color values for the pixels in your photos, you can effectively edit the final inverted version. Try playing around with the curves, contrast, and white balance tools in Snapseed to see what cool effects you can produce.

When it comes to photo editing, Photoshop^® is undoubtedly one of the biggest names in the game. With over 100 million downloads, Photoshop^® Express is a formidable photo editor. It’s got an impressive 4.6-star rating after more than two million reviews on Google Play, with the majority of these reviews being five stars.

Like other complete photo editors, Photoshop^® Express allows users to reverse the colors in their photos. The process requires a few more steps than dedicated color inversion apps, but this additional complexity is a natural side effect of having so many additional editing tools at your disposal. Try playing around with the lighting tools to see how you can change the inverted version of your photo. The library of filters might also help you create cool effects. And if there’s an object or blemish in your image that you don’t want, use the advanced healing tool to remove it. Your creativity really is the limit.

Creating art for creativity’s sake is all well and good, but few things beat having your work seen and appreciated by an audience. Pixlr is all about sharing your pictures with a community of like-minded photographers, editors, and artists. Share your creations with the Pixlr community or upload them directly to external social media apps, like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. You can even email your creations straight from Pixlr!

Before you share your art, you need to create it. This is where Pixlr’s vast library of effects, filters, and overlays comes in. All in all, you can combine the filters, effects, and overlays in over two million unique ways. Each combination could produce a different effect when you invert the colors in your photos.

If you want to utilize the power of artificial intelligence to take your photo editing game to the next level, PhotoDirector might be the app for you. The app has not one, not two, not even three AI-powered effects, but several. Transform yourself into an anime character, create an avatar, turn your selfies into professional headshots, turn pictures into sketches and other art styles, and even cut out and replace entire sections of your photos with a few AI-assisted taps.

There isn’t an AI-powered color inversion tool, but that’s because you don’t need one. Inverting colors in PhotoDirector involves much the same process as in the other editing apps on this list.

If you don’t want to download a new app, but still want to invert the colors of a photo, try PhotoAiD’s photo inverter tool. While working on a program to process pictures of faces, the team at PhotoAiD created various specific photo editing tools, including an inverter. They then made these tools available online for free.

Inverting your photos with PhotoAiD is straightforward. Go to the website, upload your photo, and click the Invert Colors button. That’s it! If you want to perform further edits on your image, you can try using some of PhotoAiD’s other tools, also available on the website. There are tools for blurring, cropping, flipping, brightening, rotating, enlarging, and more. Combining these tools together can help you achieve some pretty extensive edits without having to download or pay for professional software.

Of course, if you want to download an app, then PhotoAiD has one. Available on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store, PhotoAiD’s photo editing app packs all of its various tools into one handy editing solution. However, note that the app is focused on producing passport photos, and is therefore designed to achieve that. If you’re looking to invert the colors of your photo, then you might find the web-based tool easier.

Editing photos on your phone is handy, but computers still reign supreme when it comes to professional photo editing. If you want to edit your pictures on your computer, whether that’s a PC or Mac, an excellent software choice is Movavi Photo Editor. Packed with intuitive tools, some of them powered by AI, Movavi Photo Editor makes creating professional-looking photos straightforward, even for amateurs. Try combining some of the thousands of effects and filters with color inversion to achieve some effects that are truly out of this world.

Color inversion was once a time and labor-intensive process that involved various chemicals and a darkroom. It’s now as simple as clicking a few buttons on an app. Remember, though, that there’s no one perfect way to achieve this cool effect, so consider which method works best for your specific needs and wants.