Software for Inverting Solargraphs
1. MS Paint: Steps: select all, right click, Invert Color.
2. Preview (Mac): Steps: In the menu, follow Tools → Adjust Color. Reverse the dark and light sliders in the adjustment window that opens. Use color and rotation tools to adjust image. To flip the image into correct L/R relationship go to Tools → Transform → Flip Horizontally
3. Photoshop Elements: Steps: in the menu, follow Filter → Adjustments → Invert
4. Gimp: Steps: in the menu, follow Colors → Invert to flip the colors from negative to positive. To flip the image into correct L/R relationship go to Image → Transform → Flip Horizontally. To adjust the colors, go to Colors → Levels, in the All-Channels area towards the bottom of this tool, select the Black eyedropper and click on a black area in your image. Do the same for the white dropper and a white area. This will remap the colors in these areas. Then use the Input Levels at the top of the tool to adjust the black, grey and white points to your liking.
5. Affinity Photo: An inexpensive full feature photo editor, a free trial is offered on their website, https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/
6. Adobe Photoshop: This is my preferred method Steps: in the menu, follow Image → Adjustments → Invert to flip the colors from negative to positive. To flip the image into correct L/R relationship go to Image → Image Rotation → Flip Horizontally
To correct the colors of the image I use the Curves tool. I choose the white eyedropper and sample a white area of your image, then with the black eye dropper I sample a black area of your image and finally poke around for a neutral area with the grey eye dropper.
Photoshop’s curve dialog
To help find the white or black areas hold down the Options key on a mac (Alt on PC) and drag the black or white triangles (circled in gray) at the bottom of the curves graph. This will give a preview of the affected areas.
The finger in the lower left of the Curves tool will allow you to select areas of your image to make them darker by pulling those tones down or lighter by pushing them up.
Other adjustments I like are:
Vibrance under Image → Adjustments → Vibrance. Move the Vibrance slider to the right. The Vibrance slider affects the intensity of colors. It has the strongest effect on muted colors in the image.
Brightness/Contrast under Image → Adjustments→ Brightness/Contrast. Adjust the Brightness slider to change the overall brightness of the image. Adjust the Contrast slider to increase or decrease image contrast.
Hue/Saturation under Image → Adjustments → Hue/Saturation. Hue/Saturation lets you adjust the hue, saturation, and lightness of a specific range of colors in an image or simultaneously adjust all the colors in an image.
I tweak these in small amounts to adjust the images to have a natural tone. You can experiment to make your images to your preference.