Transparent and Inverse effects

Transparent Ink

When an icon is displayed, pixels in an image filled with transparent ink will display the colors of the pixels underneath. Pixels in inverse ink will appear in different colors than the pixels underneath them. The color displayed is dependent on the color of the pixel underneath. The edit tools can draw and paint with these inks the same as with any normal color.

Select transparent ink by clicking over the inkwell with a blue computer screen in the Palette window.
Select inverse ink by clicking over the inkwell with a pink computer screen in the Palette window.

Inverse Ink

Although this feature is referred to as inverse, the colors that it produces when an icon is displayed over a background are not necessarily opposites by any definition. Windows is dependent on the video mode of the installation when it creates an inverse effect. If the video mode uses a color palette (16 color or 256 color modes), the 'inverse' color that is displayed must exist in the current color palette. In this case Windows chooses the color to display based on the location of the colors in the palette. For example, in 256 color mode the 'inverse' of the color in the first position of the color palette is the color that appears in the last position of the color palette. The inverse of the second color is the color located in the 'last minus one', and so on.

The inverse ink option is not available in Windows XP images.