lab.
the process
for the darkroom you have: a sink at home, a shared space, a lab across town.
an image doesn't need a camera anymore. the people who still load film do it for the hands, the chemistry and the wait, and lab is built for them.
ask for access ›lab keeps every roll, from the receipt to the scan: the film on your shelf, each roll's code from the camera to the sleeve, the develop sessions and the chemistry they ran through, and the name each scan will carry. alternative processes, from cyanotype to platinum, have a station of their own: switch it on in lab's settings, and it sits in develop beside c-41 and b/w, with the paper and fabric you coat, the chemistry, the digital negatives you print from, and every print from test strip to final. most of it is already written down somewhere, on a receipt, a box end or a notebook by the sink, and lab gives it one place to land.
in the app
the process path.
from the founder's own practice
every film you own, how much is left, and when it expires.
in january 2023 after making a test print, i wrote 75/25 in pencil on the back of it. it represented the cotton/polyester mix on the fabric i was printing on. after reconciling my expenses, looking through handwritten receipts and faded thermal-printed versions, i found that the correct mix was actually 73/27. the information existed. it was just scattered. lab is where it lands now.
Harvey Castro · photographer
what it keeps
the shelf.
every film you own sits on one shelf, with how much is left of each and when it expires. before you head out you know what's in the fridge and what should be shot first, the kind of thing that usually lives in your head until the day it doesn't.
the roll.
each roll gets a code and a qr label the day it comes into the house. scan the label and its record opens, and from loading to sleeving the code goes where the roll goes. years later, a sleeve in a binder still leads back to the camera, the film and the day it was shot.
the run.
the develop station keeps the kit, the temperature and the time, and it counts how many rolls that chemistry has already seen. the extra time follows a rule you can name: for c-41, the kit's own, +2% for each roll already through it (+4% for the 500 mL powder), up to the kit's limit; for black and white, the rate you take from your developer's sheet; a one-shot developer adds nothing. the session shows the working, "time +8% for reuse (4 through it × 2%)". whether you develop at the sink or send the roll across town, the run stays with the roll, and when a negative comes out thin you can look at what happened instead of guessing.
example · a fictional practice
roll 5 through a Cs41 kit at 102°f: 3:30, plus 8% for the four rolls before it, is 3:47.
the receipt.
snap the receipt or drop in the pdf, and it's filed under the shop that sold it. the shop's details go into its record, and your card number isn't copied into the purchase; the receipt itself stays private, with your purchase, as you took it. months later the film, the chemistry and the paper can still be traced back to where they came from, without a shoebox of thermal paper fading in a drawer.
the alternative-process station.
contact prints made by hand have a station of their own: cyanotype, salt, van dyke, kallitype, argyrotype, platinum and palladium, ziatype, gum, or a process of your own. switch it on in lab's settings when you need it, and it sits in develop beside c-41 and b/w, as alt. the paper and fabric you coat, the chemistry, the digital negative you printed from, and each print's exposure and steps are kept together, from the test strip to the final, with a short line you can pencil on the back. what each print used shows as a cost estimate, and a print made before, dye sublimation included, can be logged with its process.
the lab across town.
when a roll leaves the house, its record goes with it. lab keeps the scan link on the roll and shows how many days it has left, and each lab's page shows what you've bought there and what they've developed for you. the work that leaves the house comes back to the same record.
the file name.
lab writes each scan's file name while the roll develops, ready to copy when you scan. it's a small thing that does a lot of work: it's the thread between a file on a drive and the roll in the binder, and it holds when the drive changes.
the lock.
when a roll is done, you close it. its record locks, and every change made before that stays in its history, so a finished roll reads like a finished chapter, and the answer to "how was this made?" stays the one you'd have given the day you made it.
your copy.
your records are yours. lab's records leave with you as a file you can keep, whenever you want them.
how a print was made
a roll is the first link in the chain behind a print: which film, which session, which chemistry, which lab, which scan. lab keeps that chain as you go, so when someone asks how a print was made you can show them, and stand behind the work.
how it connects
the camera you load is the same record as in gear, with its serial and its repairs.
a print you make can join edition's collection with its making read from lab, and if it's your own work, you can issue its certificate there.
the shop and the lab across town are contacts, with the people who work there.
how it fits
lab is one of four tools, with diary, edition and gear. you sign in once and they're all there, each one a door, and the ones you don't have yet are one request away. start with the one you need, and come as you are.
studio369.ai opens by invitation. ask for access whenever you're ready.