Category Archives: Synthetic Corp

SwankoLab Review

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SwankoLab Review is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Developer: Synthetic Corp
Price: $1.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0.1
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 4

iPhone Integration Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
Re-use Value Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I was part of a school camera club when I was a kid. We took photos for an hour and then headed back to the ludicrously cool dark room to develop our snaps of fairly boring subjects like fields and trees. I always thought we could have made these aesthetically dull pictures a little more exciting if we could have at least experimented with a few new chemicals during the development process but sadly, according to Mr Slatter, that’s not the way it’s done.

Prasie be then that SwankoLab has emerged from the same snap-happy bunch that brought us the excellent Hipstamatic, allowing me to indulge my photographic alchemy right on my iPhone without a teacher to stunt my manic creativity.

A virtual darkroom filled with image-adjusting chemicals awaits when you first fire up SwankoLab. It won’t take much play with the delicious interface before you’re applying saturation and bleaching effects to your existing iPhone snaps. Pick from any of the available bottles on the shelf above your development tray, read what their effect will be and then drop them into the mix. There is a limit to how many chemicals you can use in one sitting (as should be the case with all hazardous materials you experiment with) which is a blessing given how easy it is to get carried away.

Your image is then processed in an attractive yet fairly time consuming manner before being hung out to dry while you preview it. From there you can share your image, name the formula used or trash it altogether. On more than one occasion I did find that an image didn’t develop at all, however. Rather than feel my pride swell as my original image appeared from its bath of property tweaking liquid, my heart sank as I looked at a blank print. Whether it was the photo I chose, the type chemicals I mixed, witchcraft or perhaps FBI censorship, I don’t know. I guess, as is true of any experiment, sometimes it just doesn’t work.

That slight niggle aside, SwankoLab is a fun app that allows you to achieve similar retro effects to your Hipstamatic shots but using photos you’ve already taken and even those imported from your computer which makes it endlessly reusable. Combine that with the many chemical combinations at your disposal and the option to buy more and you’ve got an immensely enjoyable and creative tool at your disposal.

With IncrediBooth and Hipstamatic already under their belts, the guys at Synthetic Corp are quickly becoming the best photography developers in the business. And now they’ve added SwankoLab to the fold, I mean “developers” in more than one sense of the word.

[ SwankoLab Review is a post from 148Apps ]


IncrediBooth

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IncrediBooth is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website

Developer: Synthetic Corp
Price: $.99
Version Reviewed: 1.00
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 4

iPhone Integration Rating: Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Features Rating: Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Once upon a time I dated a girl who was obsessed with retro photo booths. When I say obsessed I mean we would literally spend hours upon hours scouring a city trying to find one. Don’t get me wrong, we had a lot of fun doing it and the photos were always hilarious, but our quests often lead us to some very…questionable establishments. That and being pulled away from watching the Bears vs. Packers game to go take pictures was not exactly a brownie point winner. Oh, how I wish I had something like IncrediBooth back then to help keep my sanity.

IncrediBooth does an amazing job of bringing those retro style photo booths straight to your phone. Using the iPhone 4’s front facing camera you can quickly take a strip of photos using one of the three lenses (B&W, SuperContrast, and Kaimal infrared) offered. The SuperContrast lens gives a yellow/green tint while the Kaimal infrared leaves a red one. The lenses are chosen by twisting a knob to a “1, 2, or 3.” While the app itself doesn’t provide a description of which lens is which, it’s easy enough to figure out after about 5 minutes of tinkering around. Quick tip, if you’re having trouble turning the knob, use your thumb and pointer finger to twist, just as you would on a physical knob. From there you can “step outside the booth” to collect your photos to share via Facebook, e-mail, or save directly to your camera roll. Each strip is four photos long and you can chose to share each photo individually or the strip as a whole. The only real complaint I have about the app is the lack of support for the rear camera. There are plenty of instances I can think of where using the rapid fire shot towards others would be more than amusing, plus the flash would really help in low light situations.

In the end IncrediBooth is a very well made app but ultimately falls into the category of novelty. The $.99 price tag makes it a novelty that’s worth a look especially if you’re looking for a reason to use your front facing camera. However, without the rear camera support it will undoubtedly become an app lost in your iPhone’s great abyss of folders with other greats like Sound Grenade and The Moron Test.

[ IncrediBooth is a post from 148Apps ]