To flip an image vertically is to swap its top and bottom, as a still lake reflects the hills above it. The sky ends up at the bottom, and you get an upside-down image that is mirrored, not just turned.
This page opens the Rotate & flip tool with Flip upside down switched on and the Turn set to No turn, so pressing Rotate gives you that reflection. Before you flip the image upside down, it is worth knowing the difference between a vertical flip and a half turn, because for an upside-down photo or scan the turn is usually what you want. Both are here, free, in your browser, with nothing uploaded.
How to flip an image vertically
- Press Select images, or drop one or more pictures onto the page.
- Look at the stage: the picture already shows flipped, because Flip upside down is on.
- Leave Turn at No turn, and Mirror left to right off, for a pure top-to-bottom flip.
- Keep Save as on Original, or pick JPG, PNG or WebP.
- Press Rotate, then save. The file name ends in _rotated.
The size stays the same: a 3000 × 2000 picture comes out 3000 × 2000, as the Result line in the panel shows. Nothing is cut away and nothing is added.
The letter F between the Turn buttons copies whatever you set, so you can see at a glance that the result is a reflection: the F hangs upside down with its arms still pointing right. A half turn would point them left as well.
To check the detail, zoom in with the + key or the zoom buttons under the picture, and press 0 to fit it again. Zoom changes only your view, never the saved picture.
Make an image upside down: flip or turn?
There are two ways to make an upside-down image, and this panel does both: flip the image upside down, which mirrors it, or turn the image upside down by half a circle, which does not. They look alike at first, but mixing them up is the most common mistake.
| Flip upside down (this page) | Turn: Upside down | |
|---|---|---|
| What happens | Top and bottom swap, like a reflection | The whole picture turns half a circle |
| Left and right | Stay where they were | Swap places |
| Writing | Upside down and mirrored | Upside down, but reads normally once turned back |
| Use it for | Reflections and design effects | Photos and scans that came out upside down |
So if a scanned page or a photo is simply the wrong way up, do not flip it: turn it. Switch Flip upside down off and press Turn right twice until the panel says Upside down, or open Rotate & flip image. A flip would leave the writing mirrored.
This matters most for documents. A scanned letter that is flipped instead of turned has every line of writing mirrored, which is hard for anyone to read, and harder still for a program that reads text. A half turn puts it right in one step.
If you switch on both Flip upside down and Mirror left to right, the result is the same as turning upside down, and the tool makes it as a half turn. To mirror left to right only, switch Flip upside down off and Mirror left to right on, or open the Flip image page, which starts that way.
What a vertical flip is good for
A true vertical flip has fewer everyday uses than a mirror or a turn, but when you need it, nothing else does the job. It is mostly a tool for reflections and for design.
- Set a reflection upright. A photo of mountains reflected in a lake, or of a building in a puddle, shows them upside down; a vertical flip makes the reflection read the right way up.
- Make a reflection effect. A product standing on a glossy floor shows a faint mirror of itself below, and a flipped copy recreates the look.
- Build patterns. Tiles and borders often alternate a shape with its vertical mirror, and a flipped copy gives you the second half.
- Play with a design. A vertical flip can turn a landscape into an abstract shape, or make a playful, upside-down poster. For a bolder look, invert the photo as well, so every colour swaps for its opposite, like a negative.
When you flip a picture vertically, its shape stays the same. If a tile, an avatar or a post needs a set shape as well, save the flipped picture, then crop the picture to square, make the image square by adding space around it so nothing is cut off, or circle crop the image for a round profile picture.
A reflection effect, step by step
- Flip a copy of your product or logo picture on this page and save it.
- Make the copy darker or paler, so it reads as a reflection rather than a twin, with the Adjust image colour tool.
- Stack the original above the flipped copy with Merge images, which puts pictures one above the other.
Keep the two pictures the same width, so the reflection lines up exactly under the original. If they differ, make them match first with Resize image.
Flip several pictures, and keep the quality
Select up to 100 pictures to flip them all the same way. The button counts them (Rotate 6 pictures), and Save all as ZIP saves the results in one file. A file that cannot be opened is marked Can’t open on its card and skipped. Afterwards, Change settings takes you back to the panel with your settings kept, and New picture starts again with other pictures.
Save as Original keeps a JPG as a JPG and a PNG as a PNG; an iPhone HEIC photo becomes a JPG, and a GIF, BMP or TIFF becomes a PNG. A flip moves pixels without changing them, but a JPG is saved again at high quality, so the change is very hard to see. PNG keeps every pixel of the flipped picture exactly.
A picture with a transparent background stays transparent when saved as PNG or WebP. Saved as JPG, its transparent parts become white. If the picture is also a little tilted, Straighten is on the same panel and turns it by a small angle, cropping the corners so no empty edges show.
Private, free and in your browser
The picture is opened and flipped inside this browser tab. It is never uploaded, and our server does no picture work, so nothing is kept anywhere else. The saved picture is drawn fresh, with no location, camera or date details, and its colours are saved as standard sRGB, so a wide-colour photo can shift very slightly.
- Free, with no account and no watermark.
- Image tools are not counted in the daily limit, which applies to document conversions only.
- Works in current Chrome, Edge and Firefox. Very large pictures may be too big for your browser.
- For a clip, the Flip video upside down tool does the same for video, also in your browser.
Flip your image now
To flip an image vertically, open it here and press Rotate: Flip upside down is already on. For an upside-down image that is not mirrored, such as a scan that came out the wrong way up, turn it instead, so writing stays readable.
It is free and private, and nothing leaves your device. Select your pictures above to start.
