How to do a colour switcheroo on a .png without photoshop?
August 28, 2018 11:36 AM Subscribe
I have a .png that is black and white. I want to change the black to white and the white to black. How?
Once upon a time I knew a thing or two about doing such a thing in photoshop, but I don't have that program now. There must be another way? I also have a .dxg, .svg and .eps but I don't know what those file types are and don't know what programs open them. All I have is whatever picture editing software comes with Windows and whatever I can download from the web. Hope me?
Once upon a time I knew a thing or two about doing such a thing in photoshop, but I don't have that program now. There must be another way? I also have a .dxg, .svg and .eps but I don't know what those file types are and don't know what programs open them. All I have is whatever picture editing software comes with Windows and whatever I can download from the web. Hope me?
Gimp is a free photo-shop like tool that has an invert command. ("Colors-> invert") There's a steep learning curve in general, but for this task it isn't too bad. You'll want to "export" rather than (or in addition to) "save" your file to get a new png that other software can open. (There are also lots of more complicated tools for selecting and coloring regions if you're not just literally swapping black and white.)
Inkscape is free and will let you edit the svg file. If you think you'll ever need to make higher-resolution or alternative format versions of the image, that might be worth doing. How exactly you swap colors will depend on what kind of graphical object it is you're dealing with.
posted by eotvos at 11:56 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
Inkscape is free and will let you edit the svg file. If you think you'll ever need to make higher-resolution or alternative format versions of the image, that might be worth doing. How exactly you swap colors will depend on what kind of graphical object it is you're dealing with.
posted by eotvos at 11:56 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
This online tool seems to do the trick simply/quickly.
posted by Funeral march of an old jawbone at 12:07 PM on August 28, 2018
posted by Funeral march of an old jawbone at 12:07 PM on August 28, 2018
Agree that I would be using Gimp for this and it will do other photoshop-like tasks. Somewhat annoying learning curve, but free and multi-platform.
posted by jessamyn at 12:07 PM on August 28, 2018
posted by jessamyn at 12:07 PM on August 28, 2018
Seconding, at least on Windows, Paint.Net It's a fantastic free tool.
posted by gregvr at 12:40 PM on August 28, 2018
posted by gregvr at 12:40 PM on August 28, 2018
Best answer: Draftsite has a freeware option that will open your dxf. Is is by memory a huge download 0.5Gb?
But it is reliable and I use it often. It will also export eps svg and png.
posted by unearthed at 1:21 PM on August 28, 2018
But it is reliable and I use it often. It will also export eps svg and png.
posted by unearthed at 1:21 PM on August 28, 2018
Irfanview is my (free) goto simple graphic editor for tasks like this.
posted by achrise at 1:23 PM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by achrise at 1:23 PM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: Wonderful, thanks all. I managed it with paint.net. I remember trying Gimp years ago and holy cow it was difficult to learn - as you have said. This is a great tool for my purposes.
posted by kitcat at 1:25 PM on August 28, 2018
posted by kitcat at 1:25 PM on August 28, 2018
I use Pixlr online for all my one-off image editing needs. Pretty sure you can do this easily there as well.
posted by cgg at 2:04 PM on August 28, 2018
posted by cgg at 2:04 PM on August 28, 2018
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posted by soelo at 11:43 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]