'Poladroid' Adds Vintage Polaroid Look to Your Photos
Shake it like a... well, you know. Since switching to digital, we've often missed the look and feel of prints from our old Polaroid cameras. Sure, you can boot up Photoshop and employ a set of filters and level adjustments to achieve the Polaroid look with the washed out colors and white borders, or you can check out the new Poladroid software.Once you open the app, drag your photos onto the Polaroid camera icon, and you'll hear that familiar Polaroid click sound. A mini print will pop up on your screen that will lack a recognizable image, just like the real thing. Over time, the picture bleeds into the frame -- it takes about a minute or two to see a fully developed image (an x appears on the bottom of the image once it's ready). Double click on the prints at any time to save the Poladroidized images to your desktop.
It's a great concept, but the execution still needs some work. The software is slow (yes, the original Polaroid took time to develop, which is part of the charm, but the software seemed to cause our computer to hang several times), and the novelty of the interface wears off after the first few picture developments. Looking to apply the effect to a lot of your photos? It's going to take awhile.
We threw a couple of photos we had sitting around onto the app, and added the results below -- check out flickr to see more results from around the Web. For now, the software is Mac only, but a Windows app is apparently in development. Still, despite the sluggish feel, the pictures often turn out sufficiently vintage, and the app is definitely worth the free download. [From: TUAW]
Like other companies long successful and entrenched in the film-making business, Polaroid has had its ups and downs in the digital age. It filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2001 as it tried to pursue a digital imaging future and was acquired by a private investment firm called the Petters Group in 2005. They stopped making instant film cameras for consumers a year ago.
