Does anybody have any technecal knowledge of the process behind inverting colors? I imagine it would be pretty simple. I'm wondering about this because I got a new HP photoscanner and scanned some B&W negatives with it. The scanning screen had an option to inver colors but I wanted to do it later and could not find that option anywhere in the software after scanning. I thought, "Well, this is interesting. I'll just use Picasa. It starts up really quickly and I can organize the scans really easily." Picasa can do all kinds of neat tricks, but not invert colors. Why it that the only programs I have that can invert colors are either really complex, expensive, and take a long time to start or free and practically useless(MS Paint)?

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I think it is a fairly simple process. I've always had a copy of Photoshop so don't know your pain, but I am sure there are cheap or free programs out there you can use. Do a search at downloads.com and see what you can find. I heard GIMP is a good program, but don't know it's capabilities.

Not entirely sure what you're going for (scanned B&W negs and they look like the negs?) but to invert your colors, hit Ctrl+I (Command+I for Mac). If they are "colors" and not shades of gray you're trying to invert, you can try it but it's going to give you the literally "opposite" color meaning: ("start color - opposite color") red - cyan green - magenta blue - yellow Hope that helps. Good luck- -Lew ;-)

Basically, I found it interesting that none of my good free image editing programs could invert colors. I had to pretend the b&w negatives were slides because the negative option tries to filter the brown that isn't actually present, like in my color negatives. It just seems like it would be pretty easy to implement coding that inverts color.

Not sure if this would be an issue...but I found with HP scanner/printers if you do not follow the install directions perfectly it misses out components on the software.I had to install mine 3 times to get the scanner part to work right.Sometimes you even have to go get a driver update even when it is new.

I too had to try the install several times before i got my Hp scanner to work. You do indeed need to follow the directions exactly including what to plug in first , then next, etc. PsP 9 is a VERY good editing program that is relatively inexpensive. It will invert colors and do almost everything Adobe Phoshop will do ( and a heck of a lot easier) for a fraction of the price.