Swankolab for iPhone – Another Hit From Synthetic Infatuation
By: Aaron
Hipstamatic has quickly become one of the most beloved iPhone photography apps in the app store. Swankolab is the next great photography app, (right from the guys who brought us Hipstamatic) and to be frank, they have done it again! Swankolab is the dark room of yesterday brought to the phone of today. With the sounds of a college dark room, and the ambiance of a chemistry lab, Swankolab for iPhone allows you to choose your chemicals, process your photos and experiment until you create that perfect misprinted picture to wow your friends, or liven up your favorite social networking sites avatar.
Swankolab is everything you would expect as a follow up to Hipstamatic. The app is beautiful to look at, easy to use, and full of great features. Upon launching the app, you are instantly taken to a wooden dark room where you can hear the sounds of chemicals bubbling in the background. The first order of business is to pick the picture you want to edit.
Once you have carefully selected that perfect picture, you have two routes to choose from. You can either choose an already created formula of chemicals, or go crazy and mix your own. The app comes with eight built in combinations, Jeff’s Favorite, Beige Alert, The Grumpelstiltskin, The Blackout, Jungle Jim’s Secret Sauce, The Frozen Tundra, Contra Force and Fresh Baked Donuts. These each create there own very personalized effects and exposures.
You can also add your own formulas by saving the combinations of chemicals you choose after editing a picture. I have tested each of these, and found them all to be very cool looking when used. My personal favorite is Jungle Jim’s Secret Sauce. If you want to live a little more dangerously though, you can create your own mix of chemicals. Each chemical is worth a different value, and each picture can have eight total units added to its tray.
Some of the chemicals take up four slots while others only require one so you will need to play a little to get that perfect mixture. The app comes with eight photo-altering chemicals, SwankoDev A19, SwankoDev H1N, Fantabra Magic Warm, Noir, Grizzle Fix, Flamoz Fixer, Zero, Vinny’s BLO4 and Vinny’s BL95 chemicals. Again, each has a different property. Some fade while others add warm saturation. There are a lot of possibilities here so keep mixing and see what you come up with.
The real power of the Hipstamatic is the $.99 “Hipstapaks you can purchase with in the app.” Swankolab follows in this model, but allows for a one time subscription fee that entitles you to a couple new chemicals with every update. The updates are not quite as often as the Hipstamatic, but it is a lot cheaper in the long run to not have to drop $.99 with every update to get the cool new features.
The subscription cost is a one time fee of $1.99 and when you add the cost of the app at $1.99 you get lots of cool stuff for a lot cheaper than the fifteen bucks I have invested in the Hipstamatic over time. Swankolab is fun app with lots of possibilities. Check it out in the app store today for $1.99.
Our Rating: 5/5
