There’s something more personal about framing a photo on a wall, or flipping through a photo album. It feels more real, evokes more memories, and has a special appeal that definitely beats scrolling through endless feeds of millions of photos on your smartphone. Polaroids are literally like bookmarks in time, when everyone gathers to capture a moment that can’t be captured again, can’t be filtered, can’t be edited, or even duplicated. Polaroids for the longest time have been the perfect addition to a perfect holiday, but they’re often limited by A. always having a set of Polaroid papers handy, and B. being able to click the perfect photo, when everyone’s smiling, nobody’s blinking, or some friend doesn’t have hair in her face. The Polaroid Lab changes that. Imagine being able to click a photo on your smartphone, being able to edit it, crop out that photobomber in the background, AND THEN being able to immortalize it on Polaroid’s paper!

The Polaroid Lab is a novel product that lets you rest your smartphone on it, and turns the image on your smartphone screen into a Polaroid photo. The desktop device uses a close-proximity lens to literally take a photo of your screen, turning your high-end smartphone’s photo into a printed picture that you can then scribble a message under and pin to your wall. The Polaroid Lab’s biggest benefits are that you can choose the best photo from hundreds of clicks, edit it and add filters or stickers, and then place your phone with the image loaded on the screen onto the Lab to turn it into a Polaroid snap. The added advantage is that you can make multiple copies of the same snap for all your friends… now isn’t that just so much cooler than sharing photos via DropBox??

Designer: Polaroid