I love Hipstamatic. It takes ordinary scenes and imbues them with color, character and subtlety sorely absent from other, lesser camera applications. One can almost believe the hype wholesale—that the app is developed by artists. And, in suspension of disbelief, the suspicion that visual artists and photographers aren’t likely to be masters of XCode and Objective C at the level required to create such an application is almost completely dismissed.

Despite its merits as a photographic tool, Hipstamatic isn’t without its shortcomings. It doesn’t save the original, unprocessed shots, and you can’t apply effects to existing photos. You can forgive the app for this, since it’s meant to be a camera emulator, not a post-processing app or a camera substitute. But a third disadvantage is this: although you have total control over which effects are applied, you have zero control over how they are applied. Except for the obvious randomization, Hipstamatic shots are as cookie-cutter as they come. 10 people standing at the same spot taking photos of the same scene using the same film and lens combination will take virtually identical photos.

Luckily, there is hope of escape from this creative walled garden. If you’re tech-savvy iPhone user with a jailbroken phone who’s not afraid to tinker with its file system and (more importantly) has decent Photoshop skills, you can modify the existing lenses and films to create your own unique variations.