Pocket Plastic

Billed as "A Handheld Darkroom Kit for your iPhone and iPod Touch", Swankolab is the new app from the makers of Hipstamatic, designed to process existing photos from your Camera Roll. The vintage analog metaphor this time is mixing chemicals and soaking prints before hanging them up to dry, and it simultaneously looks like a lot of trouble and tons of fun.

Eight chemicals/processes are included, and you mix and match those within an overall limit (shown as the fluid level inside a measuring beaker), and then apply the combination to a photo. Your favorite "formulas" can then be saved inside a notebook, which will lead to some users fiercely guarding their proprietary recipes.

Like Hipstamatic's equipment packs, Swankolab will also feature additional purchases in the form of a $1.99 virtual subscription to a dodgy 70s-style mail order catalog for darkroom enthusiasts, dubbed "Uncle Stu's Photo Emporium". Apparently all the add-on chemicals that will ever be deployed come under a single, one-time purchase of $1.99.

The app is due early April, price unknown. At its heart, Swankolab is just a set of photo editing filters like one might find in apps such as Cross Process, Lo-Mob, etc. – perhaps even the very same ones already found in the Hipstamatic camera – but abstracting those operations with a clever UI and an analog metaphor creates something entirely new and magical; the mind is fooled into re-experiencing the familiar, stale process of adding color splashes and vignettes and contrast to photos. It invites a generation of photographers accustomed to sliders and checkboxes to think of their craft as closer to alchemy than arithmetic. As before, the guys at Synthetic Corp have implemented a cool idea with great style and humor. Expect this to be a huge hit.