Skip to main content
Inspiring
May 17, 2024
Answered

Graphics/images are randomly inverting themselves

  • May 17, 2024
  • 7 replies
  • 4736 views

For the past couple of days, whenever I open an ad, be it from last year or last month, graphics or photos will randomly invert themselves. On an ad with multiple graphics, it's not even the entire ad - it's only one image. Many of these graphics have been in our files for years. They are not linked, but I don't have the originals anymore, so it's a burden when they're inverted like this. Why are they doing this and how can I fix it?

 

Correct answer Ton Frederiks
JagerInsurance-2023BeefMonth.pdf

Thanks for sharing, I see the inverted image in the PDF when opened in Illustrator.

Acrobat displays this correctly.

It is indeed strange what is happening, inverting the image makes it white.

When I direct select the image and choose Edit > Edit Colors > Convert to Greyscale

It inverts the inverted image. This now looks as it should.

Saving as PDF also looks correct.

I don’t know why this works, maybe the very high 1136 ppi has something to do with it.

7 replies

New Participant
July 31, 2025

Object > Raterize > Grayscale worked for me : )

Brad @ Roaring Mouse
Inspiring
June 3, 2024

"I also tried right-clicking the photo to see if that would give me any options, but there is nothing:"

There won't be. If your picture is indeed embedded, go to the Links panel and select the graphic and Unembed it. That new file will now Link and you can open it in Photoshop, either by simply holding down your Option key and double-clicking on it, or opening the newly saved file wherever it's saved.

 

(When you Unembed, you will be presented with options to save as non-compressed format like PSD or TIF, so don't be surprised if you don't see JPG as an option.)

silk-m
Braniac
May 28, 2024

The image will be inverted under the following conditions.

 

You're using macOS Ventura.

View using GPU.

Images are embedded as bitmaps.
CMYK documents.

High resolution.

 

Even under the above conditions, inverted does not necessarily occur.

 

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447-illustrator-desktop-bugs/suggestions/48477803-gpuプレビューモードで高解像度2階調の埋め込み画像の表示がおかしくなる 

--Susumu Iwasaki
Inspiring
May 30, 2024

I'm using Monterey, not Ventura. The document is in grayscale, not CMYK. The image is a jpg, not a bitmap. I don't know how to tell if it's GUP or high resolution.

Monika Gause
Braniac
May 28, 2024

Maybe unembed the image and then edit it in Photoshop?

Inspiring
June 3, 2024

It's an image we've used on the ad for 10+ years, so we don't have the original anymore. I had to go to an old saved page file, open it in Photoshop, crop out just that picture, then save it and re-paste it into the AI file. A lot of seemingly unneccessary steps. And it's not just this file - several are doing it at random, meaning I have to do this same tactic every time it happens.

Ton Frederiks
Braniac
June 3, 2024

Can you share one example file?

Braniac
May 22, 2024

It might be a bit annoying, but if you select one of the inverted images you should see a "Edit in Photoshop" button on the upper toolbar (I'm using Illustrator's "Essentials Classic" workspace). In Photoshop. Clicking that will open the image file in Photoshop. You can select Image>Adjustments>Invert to flip the image back into a positive looking one rather than negative.

 

Embedded images can be inverted within Illustrator. Go to the Edit menu>Edit Colors>Invert Colors.

Inspiring
May 23, 2024

There is no Edit in Photoshop option in any workspace, and inverting colors directly in Illustrator does nothing. We don't embed anything in our Illustrator files because we don't want to risk broken links, which would cause us to lose data.

Inspiring
May 28, 2024

Does Edit > Edit Colors > Invert Colors work for you?


No, it does not. That  just makes the image all white, so it disappears completely.

 

Ton Frederiks
Braniac
May 21, 2024

I have seen this mentioned before, but that was a long time ago and fixed in an update,

It may be best to contact Adobe support and ask for an agent: https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html?rghtup=autoOpen

 

Inspiring
May 23, 2024

If it was fixed in an update, I don't understand why I'd still have the issue.

Inspiring
May 21, 2024

BUMP. Anything???