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Have you ever picked up your phone or opened your laptop just to find that the screen looks like something out of a Predator movie? You know what I mean. All the colors are jacked up and it looks like you’re seeing things through infrared goggles. While it’s possible that is a result of the screen being damaged, it’s more likely that you or someone else has enabled color inversion.
Color inversion does exactly what the name implies. It inverts each color to the one that is closest to its opposite on the color spectrum. Maybe you did it by accident or perhaps someone is playing a joke on you. Whatever the reason, there’s no reason to panic. On many mobile devices, you can find the color inversion in the display or appearance settings. On a Chromebook, you don’t even have to go into the settings menu because there’s a simple shortcut to flip things back to normal.
If you find that your Chromebook has had its “invert colors” setting enabled, all you have to do to turn it off is press Ctrl+Search+H on your keyboard. The Search key, also known as the everything button, is the key with the circle on it directly above your left shift key. Click those three buttons and boom, your colors should be right as rain.
You may be wondering why a laptop would have color inversion in the first place. In case you were, it actually serves a very good purpose. If you go to your Chromebook’s settings menu and look under the Accessibility section, you’ll find the invert colors option. It lives there because inverting the colors on web pages and other applications can make them easier to see and read for some that are visually impaired. That stark contrast that’s created by inverting the colors makes the elements on the page more prominent and therefore, easier to view.
So, there you go. If you accidentally enabled the color inversion feature on your Chromebook or perhaps you were wondering how to ENABLE it, now you know. Just a simple Ctrl+Search+H and you’re on your way.
Fun Fact: Color inversion is often referred to as High Contrast mode.
