How to Invert Colors on a Picture - iPhone

Ivana Kotorchevikj

Written by Ivana Kotorchevikj Gadgets / Apple iPhone

Linkedin Twitter Published 10 months ago / updated 2 months ago - 5 min read

Inverting colors on your iPhone can be a great way to add some flair to your photos, or to improve visibility in low-light conditions. The process is quick and easy, and it can be done right from the Photos app.

Why inverting colors on colors is useful

Although inverting colors on a picture is a great way to make your photos more fun, the invert option is also useful for people who have color blindness, visual shortage or difficulties differentiating between image and text content against the background color of the iPhone screen.

As the name applies, the feature reverses the colors, i.e., changes the existing colors on a photo to a completely opposite one.

For example, if the color fill-up is black, it turns into white, and so on. This way, it’s really useful for visually impaired individuals or color-blind users.

How to invert colors on a picture on iPhone

Now that we’ve explained why color inverting is useful, let’s proceed to how to invert colors on iPhone.

iPhones have a built-in function for inverting colors. Basically, there are two ways you can invert the colors on a photo. You can either use the Smart Invert or the Classic Invert option.

Follow the steps below to choose one of the color invert options:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Scroll down and open the ‘Accessibility’ option.

3. On the Accessibility page, scroll down to ‘Display & Text Size’ and tap on it.

4. Next, scroll down and locate the ‘Smart Invert’ and ‘Classic Invert’ options. Toggle one of the options.

Note 1: You can’t have both the Smart Invert and Classic Invert options enabled.

Note 2: The difference between the Smart Invert and Classic Invert is that, the Smart Invert reverses the colors on the display, except for images, media and some apps that use dark color styles. While the Classic Invert reverses the colors of the entire display. Choose which option works best for you, or use them together.

✔ If you want to learn how to invert colors on Chromebook, check out our blog post on that.

How to invert colors on older iPhone models

Newer iPhone models ( iPhone x or later) have these smart options for inverting colors. However, if you have an older iPhone model, there's only one option for inverting colors, also the steps for inverting colors are a bit different:

1. Open Settings on your iPhone.
2. Go to ‘General’.
3. Scroll down and tap on ‘Accessibility’.
4. Toggle on the ‘Invert Colors’ option.

How to invert colors on iPhone with shortcuts

If you don’t want to go through all the steps above to invert colors on your iPhone, you can set up a shortcut for the invert colors option and access it easily with just one tap.

To set up the color invert shortcut on newer iPhone models:

1. Go to ‘Settings’ on your device.
2. Select ‘Accessibility’.

3. Scroll to the bottom and tap on ‘Accessibility Shortcut’.

4. Tap on ‘Classic Invert’ or ‘Smart Invert' to select them. Note: You can’t have both the Smart Invert and Classic Invert options enabled.

To activate the color invert function, triple press the side button. The inverted color will be activated with no extra steps or processes. The colors will be inverted on your iPhone without extra steps.

To set up the color invert shortcut on older iPhone models:

1. Go to ‘Settings’ on your device.
2. Scroll down and tap on ‘General’.
3. Select ‘Accessibility’.
4. Scroll all the way down on the Accessibility page and tap on ‘Accessibility Shortcut’.
5. Here, tap on ‘Invert Colors’ to select it.

To activate the invert colors option, triple press the home button.

Now that you know how to invert colors on a picture on iPhone, you might continue reading how to turn on the grid on iPhone camera to really make your photos step up.