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NegativeScreen

NegativeScreen is a Windows application allowing you to invert your screen colors.
Apart from accessibility matters, this software is especially useful when you are surfing on the internet in a dark room, and the screen is dazzling you.

NegativeScreen was designed to work without impacting the performances and fluidity of your computer.
Unlike the Windows Magnifier, which is also capable of such color inversion, it was specifically designed to be easy and convenient to use.

Different inversion modes are provided, including “smart” modes, allowing blacks and whites inversion, while keeping colors (about) the sames.

Usage

The color inversion takes effect immediately after starting the program.

NegativeScreen comes with a minimal graphic interface in the form of a system tray icon with a context menu.
You can toggle the inversion by clicking the tray icon, and access more features by right clicking it.

Along with these commands, you can also control NegativeScreen only by using hot keys. Read on…

Default hot keys

Win+Alt+H: Halt immediately the program
Win+Alt+N: switch between normal mode and colors inversion mode (Night vision 🙂)
Win+Alt+F1-to-F11: change inversion mode:
F1: standard inversion
F2: smart inversion 1 - theoretical optimal transformation (but ugly desaturated pure colors)
F3: smart inversion 2 - high saturation, good pure colors
F4: smart inversion 3 - overall desaturated, yellows and blues plain bad, actually relaxing and very usable
F5: smart inversion 4 - high saturation, yellows and blues plain bad, actually quite readable
F6: smart inversion 5 - not so readable, good colors. (CMY colors a bit desaturated, still more saturated than normal)
F7: negative sepia
F8: negative gray scale
F9: negative red
F10: red
F11: grayscale

Keep in mind you can always change these defaults by editing the configuration file.

Configuration

The version 2.0 (and 1.13) introduces a configuration file allowing to tweak almost everything in NegativeScreen.

You can now choose your own hot keys if you don’t like the defaults, and you can even add you own color effects!
This requires some knowledge in color matrices though.
I may add an easy way to build some in a future version…

If the configuration file (negativescreen.conf) is missing, you can use the “Edit Configuration” menu to regenerate the default one.

Should something go wrong after edition (bad hot key…), you can simply delete the configuration file, the internal default configuration will be used.

Windows XP Version

Unfortunately, the Windows Magnification API this application uses, is not available on Windows XP.
Therefore, I’m sorry to tell, there will be no XP compatible version of NegativeScreen.

Downloads

NegativeScreen is freely available, along with its source code, under GPL license.

Changelog

Click to display

Version 2.6.1, 2021-04-10
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- [changed] target .NET 4.5 (see https://zerowidthjoiner.net/negativescreen#comment-534224)

Version 2.6, 2018-12-05
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- [added] new matrices (color blindness simulation, and binary) added to the default configuration file
- [fixed] color effect sometimes randomly activated by other running programs on the system

Version 2.5, 2017-05-28
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- [fixed] when an instance is already running, enable its color effect instead of showing an unhelpful message about it
- [fixed] no longer crash when trying to set a color effect while the Windows Magnifier color inversion is enabled
- [added] a basic web api is now part of NegativeScreen! See the readme for more information
- [added] new EnableApi configuration option, defaults to false
- [added] new ApiListeningUri configuration option, defaults to listening on port 8990, localhost only
- [added] new About window, available from the systray menu
- [added] add a retro-compatible user-specific fallback location for the configuration file:
		- if the file "%AppData%/NegativeScreen/negativescreen.conf" exists, it will be used in priority.
		- if the "negativescreen.conf" file beside the executable cannot be modified,
			trying to edit the current configuration will result in a configuration in AppData being created.

Version 2.4, 2014-11-30
------------------------
- [fixed] force the working directory to be the one of the executable (so the .conf file is found when starting from the cli)

Version 2.3, 2014-03-28
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- [fixed] crash if more than one custom color effect is added without an associated hot key
- [added] (re)added the ShowAeroWarning configuration option from the version 1.*
- [added] check box next to the current color effect in the right click menu

Version 2.2, 2013-02-17
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- [fixed] avoid crash if a hot key cannot be registered
- [added] new ActiveOnStartup configuration option

Version 2.1, 2012-12-22
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- [fixed] crash on Windows 8 due to inter-threads calls
		(this was not a problem on Windows 7)
- [added] new MainLoopRefreshTime configuration option

Version 2.0, 2012-12-14
------------------------
Major update:
	- reworked entirely
	- better performances
	- smooth transitions
	- graphic interface (minimal)
	- configuration file:
		- fine grained configuration
		- custom hotkeys
		- custom color effects

Version 1.14, 2014-11-30
------------------------
- [fixed] force the working directory to be the one of the executable (so the .conf file is found when starting from the cli)

Version 1.13, 2013-07-04
------------------------
- [added] implemented the configuration file for the version 1.*
- [added] configuration option to disable the message warning about aero being disabled

Version 1.12, 2012-12-14
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- [fixed] crash on Windows 8

Version 1.11, 2012-06-26
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- [added] new red and negative red filters bound on F9 and F10

Version 1.10, 2012-05-15
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- [fixed] infinite flickering on Vista (introduced in 1.8)

Version 1.9, 2012-04-16
------------------------
- [fixed] stupid bug if the Windows taskbar is vertical

Version 1.8, 2012-03-22
------------------------
- [fixed] execution is no longer prevented if aero is disabled (previous bug corrected)
		however, the performances will still be horrible

Version 1.7, 2012-03-21
------------------------
- [fixed] works as expected when using custom DPI settings

Version 1.6, 2012-02-27
------------------------
- [fixed] crash on X86 on launch
- [fixed] prevent execution if aero is disabled
		(prevent undesirable behaviours: black screens, 100% CPU usage...)

Version 1.5, 2012-02-16
------------------------
- [fixed] (internal) ColorMatrix implementation
- [added] new feature: choice between 9 inversion modes
		(smart mode, etc... see readme for details)

Version 1.4, 2012-02-09
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- [fixed] does not crash anymore on Windows Vista

Version 1.3, 2012-02-01
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- [fixed] multi-screen should finally work!
		after a lot of tests and coding, I re-thought completely the architecture
- [knownbug] in some screen configurations, if the primary screen if smaller than the other screen,
		 the second larger screen has a black border at its bottom.
		 It could be a bug in the Windows API...

Version 1.2, 2011-09-18
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- [fixed] multi-screen support (again) : bug with main screen on the right

Version 1.1, 2011-09-13
------------------------
- [fixed] multi-screen support
- [fixed] when halted while paused, the application never stopped

Version 1.0, 2011-09-06
------------------------
- Initial release

If you are interested in technical details, you can read the following post, recounting the development of this project (in French).

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