Swatchmatic – niche Android app for designers & creatives, get colours palettes from your camera phone
by Paul Wilks
Nov 13, 2012 1:25 PM –
Install
Swatchmatic is an app that lets you create palettes of colour from the things around you using your device’s camera- augmented reality style. Ever spotted a colour that you want to preserve for some project or another? The app has multiple uses, whether you’re a designer or perhaps just looking for a colour to paint your kitchen. Additionally, it’s great to use and features a very cool UI which, sucker as I am for such things, led me to find the app in the first place!
Price: Free
Tested on: HTC One X
Content Rating: Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Easy to use!
- Great UI!
- Preserves all your favourite colours!
- Plenty of options to help you discover similar and complimentary colours!
Cons
- I wished the saved pallets were in a bolder display, instead they are shown on a robot.
- Info font is tiny.
Features:
Swatchmatic is one great looking app and while perhaps it’s a little niche, I can imagine quite a number of uses for it. You might be a web designer looking for just the right tones for a client’s website, a fashion designer looking to use a particular palette of colours for your new designs. Alternatively you might be an artist or graphic designer, or someone into interior design or even just someone looking to paint your kitchen! Swatchmatic helps you discover and preserve the various colours you see around you.
Fire the app up and it shows you the camera view straight away. The app soaks up the colours it sees and presents them in a circle of swatched tones which you can then tap on to explore and save. These are presented as a coloured robot and attaches other information such as HSV, RGB and WEB descriptive (for example, the general tone of my desk is ‘Log Cabin’, which is #232920). While this info is great, it is displayed in a tiny font that you almost have to squint to read. All palettes you save are preserved for later access in the app’s gallery.
Back to the camera view, the app gives you a range of options to choose from. These include the ability to search for analogue, complement, triad and dominant scene colours. As you move your camera, the app dynamically searches for a wide range of tones around you, so using these ‘filters’ makes identifying an exact colour easier. There is also a host of settings which take into consideration the environment conditions (low-light, etc.) so the app adapts to where you are, which is really useful for getting just what you need.
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Swatchmatic – Autumn colours
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Swatchmatic – Pink swan is far nicer than lamp post grey
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Swatchmatic – Sky over Cambridgeshire is also known as ‘Bombay’
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Swatchmatic – Menus (1)
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Swatchmatic – Menus (2)
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Swatchmatic – Menus (3)
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Swatchmatic – Menus (4)
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Swatchmatic – Robot which displays the chosen colour and similar colours
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Swatchmatic – Detailed combinations and info
Usefulness:
If any of the above scenarios (or probably lots of others) apply to you, this is a neat app to try out. It collects colours around you and preserves them for later analysis.
Ease of Use:
There are a lot of settings which might overwhelm users a little, but these are tucked away so don’t infringe on your using the app. The app starts working as soon as you open it and, while I think while it might need better tutorial information, it works really well and is straightforward to use for the most part.
Frequently Used:
This will depend very much on the user and what s/he needs it for. Swatchmatic is, however, very stable in my experience so certainly something you can use heavily if you need to.
Interface:
The interface is rather gorgeous, quite ‘Holo’ in places and very sharp and easy-on-the-eye. The menus, interface and tabs all look very professional.
Tags:
Android App,
Android Apps,
AndroidTapp.com App Review,
Apps for Designers,
Augmented Reality,
Color,
Colour,
Design,
Fashion,
Paint,
Swatch,
Swatches,
Swatchmatic
Categorised in: Media & Video
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