Convert inverted images to positive in photoshop

[apenan]

I received two photos from a friend and unfortunately they are
in inverted format. I manage to convert one to positive in
photoshop 3 and not able to convert another one.
ANy suggestions?
The photos are enclosed.

 

[Tom Mann]

I presume the image you had trouble with is the one of the girl. The first thing to try with an image that looks like this is to simply hit, "control-I" (ie, "invert") in Photoshop. Depending on exactly how the image was created, this may or may not work. In this case, it worked. After a little noise reduction, some minor color correction, and a bit of pixelation (since this a family friendly forum), I got the following:



However, don't always assume the cntrl-I trick will always work. For example, here is an image that looks like a negative, but on which the cntrl-I method won't work. That is because this one was created using a gradient map.



Here's another version on which the cntrl-I method also won't work. In this case, the reason is because this is almost exactly what an old-fashioned film negative (that has an orange base layer) would look like.



HTH,

Tom M