image tool
Invert image colours
Drop an image and every colour is replaced by its opposite: black becomes white, blue becomes yellow, and a transparent background stays transparent. It is the quick way to turn a dark logo or line drawing light for a dark background.
Loading the tool…
- Runs on your device, nothing is uploaded
- Free, no sign in
- No watermark, no file limit
How it works
- 1
Drop the image
The preview shows the inverted version at once, on a checkered pattern so you can see the transparent areas are still clear.
- 2
Compare
Show original flips back and forth. Check that thin lines and small text still read in the inverted version.
- 3
Download the PNG
The full-size image is inverted and saved as PNG with inverted added to its name. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is stored, ever.
What inverting does to each pixel
Every pixel on screen is three numbers from 0 to 255, one each for red, green and blue. Inverting subtracts each from 255. Black, 0 0 0, becomes white, 255 255 255. Pure blue, 0 0 255, becomes yellow, 255 255 0. Middle grey stays almost exactly where it is. The fourth number, alpha, which says how see-through the pixel is, is left alone, so a logo with a transparent background keeps it, and its anti-aliased edges keep their soft fade.
Where it works: logos, icons and line art
A black logo on a transparent background is the ideal case. Invert it and you get a white logo with the same edges, ready for a dark slide, a dark flyer band or a site footer. The same goes for signatures scanned as black ink on clear, diagrams drawn in one dark colour, and icon sets. Two colour marks also invert predictably, though each colour changes to its opposite, so check the result against your brand colours before using it.
Why a photo turns into a negative
A photo has meaning in its colours as well as its brightness. Flip both and skin goes blue green, skies turn orange and shadows glow, which is exactly how a film negative looks. That is a fine effect for an art piece, but it is not what people mean by a dark version. A dark mode image keeps hues and lowers brightness, which needs a recolour or a separate design, not an inversion. The tool shows a note when a JPG is dropped, because a JPG is nearly always a photo.
Check it against the real background
The checkered pattern proves the transparency survived, but the real test is the colour the logo will sit on. A white mark on a mid grey or a bright brand colour can fall below a readable contrast, especially at footer sizes. Put the two colours into the contrast checker: WCAG asks for at least 3 to 1 for graphics and large text, and 4.5 to 1 for small text, which a wordmark in a footer often is.
Limits worth knowing
Inverting a photo makes a negative, not a dark mode version; it is for icons and line art. Every channel flips, so the hue of a coloured logo changes along with its brightness. The result is saved as PNG, never JPG, so the transparent background and smooth edges survive. Images larger than 8,192 pixels on the long side are refused with a plain message rather than stalling the tab. EXIF data is not copied to the new file.
A light logo for dark slides
A dark logo disappears on a dark title slide. Invert a black or navy mark here, then upload the light PNG to the slide. Slide image uploads take JPEG, PNG, WebP and GIF, and the PNG keeps the transparent background so the slide colour shows through around the mark.
Limits
- Inverting a photo makes a negative, not a dark mode version; it is for icons and line art. A note appears when a JPG is dropped, since that is usually a photo.
- Every colour flips, so a coloured logo changes hue as well as brightness: a navy mark becomes a pale yellow.
- The output is always PNG, so transparency survives and line edges stay clean.
- Images larger than 8,192 pixels on the long side are refused with a message.
What it does not do
- It does not invert only the brightness while keeping the hues. For that, recolour the logo with the image colour changer.
- It does not invert one colour or one area; the whole image flips.
- It does not keep EXIF data.
Questions people ask
How do I turn a black logo white?
Drop the black logo, ideally a PNG with a transparent background, and download the result. Black becomes pure white and the clear background stays clear, so the white logo can sit on any dark colour. If the logo has a white box behind it rather than transparency, that box turns black, so remove the background first or use a transparent version of the file.
Why did my coloured logo change colour?
Inverting flips every channel, not just brightness. A navy logo becomes pale yellow and a red one turns cyan, because each is the opposite on the colour wheel. If you need the same hue in a lighter tint, use the image colour changer instead, which replaces chosen colours with ones you pick rather than flipping everything.
Can I invert a photo to make a film negative look?
Yes, that is exactly what happens to a photo. The tool shows a note when you drop a JPG to make sure that is what you want, then inverts it anyway. The download is a PNG, which for a photo is large; run it through the image compressor afterwards if the file needs to be small for a website or an email.
Does inverting twice give me the original back?
For a PNG, yes, exactly: 255 minus 255 minus a value is the value again, and PNG stores every pixel without loss. Drop the downloaded file back into the tool and the second inversion matches the original pixel for pixel, apart from partly transparent edge pixels, which can shift by one step because the browser stores them premultiplied.
Is this the same as the invert filter in CSS?
It gives the same result as the CSS invert filter at 100%, but baked into the file. The CSS filter changes how an image looks on one web page and leaves the file alone. This tool changes the pixels, so the inverted image looks the same in slides, documents and email, where CSS filters do not apply.
Put the light logo on a dark slide
Take what you made here into presentations.
Create a presentation with OneCraftMore tools like this
- Image colour changerTap a colour in the image, pick its replacement, and see a mask of exactly which pixels change. Runs on your device, so the artwork is never uploaded.
- Convert image to black and whiteConvert an image to black and white using Rec. 709 luminance, add contrast with a slider, and save PNG or JPG. Runs in your browser, nothing is uploaded.
- SVG to PNGRasterise an SVG at any size in your browser. It reads the declared width, height and viewBox, and warns about the fonts and links that will not survive.
- Contrast checkerSet a text colour and a background and read the WCAG ratio on a live specimen, with a pass or fail attached to every size from 30px down to 13px.
- Palette extractorCluster a photograph in CIE Lab and get the colours it is made of, each with its share of the pixels and a suggested design role. Runs in your browser.
Background reading: the question page on this.
Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .