How to Invert Colors in Photoshop

by Elizabeth Mott, Demand Media

Invert this rose, and its petals become green.

Siri Stafford/Photodisc/Getty Images

When you're creating business graphics or client projects in Adobe Photoshop, you may need to invert the colors in all or part of a file. How you create your transformation depends on whether you want to change the colors in your document permanently or incorporate an alteration that itself becomes adjustable. Regardless of which type of alteration best suits your project's needs, Photoshop tools and techniques can accommodate your retouching goal.

Invert Adjustment Layer

Step 1

Open the "Window" menu, and choose "Layers" to reveal the Layers panel if it isn't already visible. Use Adobe Photoshop's selection tools, including the Marquee, Lasso and Magic Wand, to make a selection to invert, rather than inverting the entire image. If you want to invert your entire image, you don't need an active selection.

Step 2

Click on the unlabeled "Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer" button (you can find the button by hovering over the buttons) at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose "Invert" from the drop-down menu that appears. Photoshop adds an Invert adjustment layer to your layer stack immediately above either the topmost layer or the layer that was active when you added the adjustment. If you made a selection before adding the adjustment, Photoshop builds a layer mask for the Invert layer using the selected area to define the area in which the colors invert.

Drag the Invert layer up or down the layer stack to a new position. Because it only affects the layers below it, its position in the layer stack determines its impact on your file.

Step 4

Shift-click on the layer mask applied to your Invert adjustment layer to disable the mask and apply the adjustment to your entire file. Click on the layer mask icon to enable the adjustment again. Turn off the eyeball indicator at the left edge of the Invert layer listing to disable the adjustment itself.

Invert Command Through The Drop Down Menu

Step 1

Open the "Window" menu, and choose "Layers" to reveal the Layers panel if it isn't already visible. Drag your Background layer onto the New Layer icon at the bottom of the panel, duplicating the layer. If you're inverting a complex composition, you can add a new layer at the top of the layer stack and press "Shift-Ctrl-E" to create a merged representation of your entire composite without disturbing the other layers below it.

Step 2

Use Adobe Photoshop's selection tools, including the Marquee, Lasso and Magic Wand, to make a selection to invert, rather than inverting the entire image. If you want to invert the entire image, you don't need to make a selection.

Step 3

Open the "Image" menu, locate its "Adjustments" submenu and choose "Invert." Photoshop permanently inverts the colors in your image unless you undo the inversion. Press "Ctrl-I" to access the Invert command from the keyboard.

Tips

If you've turned on the Gamut Warning to evaluate an RGB file before transforming it into CMYK mode, turn off the visual warning so you can observe and evaluate your color inversion.

To create an inverted color in the Color Picker, add 180 to the value shown in the H, or Hue, field of its HSB section. If the resulting value exceeds 360, subtract 360 from it.

Alt-click on the layer mask of an adjustment layer to display the mask itself as a grayscale image. Apply the Invert command from the Image menu to change the mask's values and thereby invert to which parts of the image it does or doesn't apply.

Warning

Avoid inverting the colors in the Background layer of your only copy of a file, unless you plan to save the document under another name. Once you alter, save and close your only copy of an original file, you leave yourself with no fallback position from which to build new versions. You can use the History panel to undo edits, but its ability to step back through your changes applies only while the file remains open and applies only to a limited number of steps.

About the Author

Elizabeth Mott has been a writer since 1983. Mott has extensive experience writing advertising copy for everything from kitchen appliances and financial services to education and tourism. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in English from Indiana State University.

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