As someone who dabbles in tradition "wet" darkroom film processes for medium and large-format photography, and enjoys digital photography with a DSLR, I have a

As someone who dabbles in tradition "wet" darkroom film processes for medium and large-format photography, and enjoys digital photography with a DSLR, I have a few observations: There are some fantastic digital filters available that try to mimic the look of film, infrared, vignette filters, colored filters with B&W film, etc. These have been available for years, and a company like Olympus has a successful products line of DSLR, rangefinder that have one-touch access to filters like neon, etc. These can be fun for about 2 weeks, but some people use them to great effect. I could play the luddite snob and sneer at the output of camera-phones with "retro" filters. But a quick look at Flickr demonstrates that people are making some amazingly interesting images with this digital filters. As far as the authors assertion that developers might take note of "unused" watercolor type filters built into Photoshop. Photoshop's stock filters are different in that they are designed to be combined, layered, etc. In 2011, there is nothing interesting about an image presented with one application of the Watercolor filter. A retro look with the stock install of PS is not a one-click operation. To achieve that look takes work on PS. But, there are countless PS filters from NIK and others that mimic old films, Ilford, the now defunct Kodachrome slide film, Fujichrome Velvia, and on and on. The better ones cost $$$. I suspect that if people had access to them, they would use them. Only then would you be able to approach the instantaneous gratification of an app like Instagram.