iPhones are known for their high-quality pictures and videos. iPhones from iOS 13 also have an editing feature that lets you flip any picture from the Photos app. You can use it when you want a picture’s mirror image.
You may have taken the perfect selfie or picture, but when you view it on the Photos app, you find that it is flipped. You can use the Photos app editing feature or a third-party app like Photoshop Express to fix this.
Read more of this article and find out how you can invert a picture on iPhone.
Why does my iPhone invert a picture?
Most iOS users ask this question, and the answer is very simple; your iPhone sometimes gets it wrong. The device may save the wrong image when they snap a picture in landscape mode.
We take pictures in landscape mode most of the time, but they are saved in portrait mode. It is because your iPhone depends on internal sensors to determine its sideways. Sometimes, those sensors are not always right.
Read: How to invert a camera on FaceTime
An example is when you take a picture of your pet in landscape mode, mostly facing down. Your iPhone will save the picture in portrait mode since the sensors do not recognize that the iPhone is in the landscape. However, the device is set to think that you want a portrait mode photo and saves it like that.
Remember that your iPhone is not picky; it saves whatever you have captured; just not always in the right mode.
How to flip a photo on your iPhone
Sometimes you snap the perfect picture, but your phone does quite the opposite. Your iPhone or iPad may save flipped or reversed pictures and selfies. It may be unpleasant because you don’t know what to do.
If you are using an iPhone of iOS version 13 and above, here are simple instructions to invert a picture on iPhone:
- Launch the Photos app.
- Choose the photo you want to flip and zoom in to enlarge it.
- Tap Edit on the upper right corner of the screen.
- The photo will zoom out, and a list of editing options will appear. Tap on the Rotate-Crop icon with a square and arrows circling it.
- A list of new options will appear on the screen. Tap on the Flip Tool icon on the upmost left, which looks like a pyramid split in half. When you tap on it, the picture will flip.
- Tap Done on the bottom-right corner of the screen or upper-right in landscape mode.
Voila, you have a flipped photo.
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To prevent ruining important photos, duplicate the original photo before editing it. Then, if the photo is edited as desired, you can choose to save or delete the original or duplicated photo to save on memory space.
How to invert a photo on iOS via Photoshop Express
iPhones with iOS version 12 and below do not have a special flipping image feature like their successors. Therefore, you must install the Photoshop Express app to invert your image. Below are the steps on how to use Photoshop Express to invert your image:
- Once you have installed the app, sign in using one of the listed accounts, e.g., Google, Apple, or your email. Next, grant the app permission to access your photos.
- Scroll through your photos in the Photoshop Express app and select the picture you want to flip.
- Tap on Crop represented by two right-angle overlappings. Third-party apps mostly use it to flip photos.
- Tap on Rotate, and a rotate screen will appear on the screen. You will be provided options at the bottom, e.g., Flip Vertical, Flip Horizontal, Rotate, and Straighten.
- Tap on Flip Horizontal.
- The app also has other editing tools if you want to continue editing your picture. If not, tap on the Share icon (a box with an arrow pointing upwards) at the top.
- Tap on Save, and the flipped photo will be automatically saved to your iPhone’s photo app.
Read: Apps like Blossom app that use your phone’s camera to identify plants
How to mirror selfie photos
Mirroring a selfie photo is an easy process done in a few minutes. Since you know how to flip a photo on your iPhone, you can also learn how to flip a photo on iPhone settings by mirroring through the following steps:
- Tap on the Photos app on your iOS device.
- Choose the image that you want to mirror.
- Tap Edit at the upper right corner of the screen.
- Tap the image editing icon at the bottom right of the editing options.
- Select the Mirror image icon at the upper left corner of the screen.
- Tap on the Done button at the lower right corner of the screen when you have finished editing the picture.
As you can see, it is the same process as that flipping a picture. The only difference is that you select different icons for the job at the top of the screen. You will see that the photo will face the opposite direction, and the characters in the picture will also be mirrored.
You also are thinking of a way to stop your iPhone from flipping. But unfortunately, that is impossible because it always takes a picture as the lens sees it. You, therefore, will not be able to capture what you see on-screen.
Perfectly flipped pictures
Your iPhone or iPad may invert a picture due to automatic camera settings that cannot be adjusted. iPhones of iOS version 13 and above have a unique feature that allows you to invert a photo through the Photos app.
iPhones of iOS versions lower than that require you to install and use apps to flip a picture like the Photoshop Express app.
The steps to flipping and mirroring your photos are easy and can be done in less than five minutes. Always remember to create a duplicate of the original photo because you may lose important details during editing.
Now that you know how to flip your photos, you need not worry about wrongly snapped photos on your iPhone.
Alex is an IT technician who shares his experiences with Apple devices occasionally. He has a collection of Apple devices (from iPhone 4) and has recently started trying out Android.
IG: @I M_Alex