The wait is over as SwankoLab hits the AppStore
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 at 9:20PM | Glyn Evans 
The creators of the Hipstamatic are thrilled to introduce a brand new darkroom kit, SwankoLab, a loving recreation of the pre-digital era classic – the darkroom of yesterday today.
Complete with smells of photo chemistry and sounds of mad science being made. Your SwankoLab kit comes with everything you need to turn any image into a retro misprinted masterpiece. Choose chemicals, process photos, and experiment. You’re the artist, nah chemist, nah creative genius, have fun.
The SwankoLab Kit includes eight magical photo altering chemicals, a formula book, magical photo tray, and a super cool hand engraved box to store your kit and prints in.
As an added bonus, Uncle Stu’s Photo Emporium has offered up access to his amazing supply catalog which give you NINE additional darkroom chemicals for a one-time subscription fee of $1.99! Thanks Stu! In addition, Stu will add more stuff to the subscription with each update.
AppStore Link: SwankoLab - Price £1.19/$1.99
Editors comments: I have just downloaded the app, but at time of writing this post I have not had enough time with it to pass judgment on it, however on first impressions this app seems nice, but the animated graphics and way the photos are processed could get annoying.
SwankoLab in New iPhone Photo Apps
Reader Comments (46)
does not appear to be in US appstore yet.
I got it. I think I agree the process animations are a bit overdone. Well allot over done. Looking forward to seeing what it can do. Perhaps they will add an option to tone down the animations. Overly flashy apps tend to make me feel like style over substance is their driving force. Time and experimentation will tell how good of an app it is.
What....??!?! No Canada release yet?!?! I been waiting for what feels like ages only be this disappointed! When will this change?
So... The question still remains. This or Hipstamatic? :)
It is not in US app store yet...hopefully any moment now!
It usually takes a few hours before a new app shows up. But if you search for their company name "Synthetic Corp" in App Store on your phone, it will show up and you can download it.
I was also a bit annoyed about the sound effects and animations.
Approx. 80 seconds for a development at full resolution [3G] :-/
You can turn off the sound effects but not the animation. Yet.
Make sure you go to the settings section of the phone and turn on High Quality Prints in the Swankolab tab. Also you don't have to wait for some of the animation to finish to flip the switch and develop. I can make the program crash on a consistent basis of I try and develop a photo that is in my camera roll but saved from an e-mail. So far has some interesting effects just not sure. Feels like hipstamatic except access to the camera roll and a new animations.
Saving a combo you like as a formula can cut down on many of the animations. Then you select the formula and just flip the switch this cuts down on allot of animation. I am actually really digging what you can do with this. Layering the effects matters depending on the layer. Sometimes it really changes the outcome to select things in different orders. I wish i could add different frames and crop the image in the program. So far though I think this is a pretty good program. I would say 4 out of 5.
Playing with SwankoLab and with the High Quality Prints set to ON. The largest output size I get is 360 x 480. Can anyone confirm this or is their something I'm missing?
@Chris, I'm getting full res on my 3G
I figured out what I was doing wrong. Thanks!
@Glyn Question, do you know of an app or a way to read image metadata information on an iPhone?
I have to say I like this app. It's a refreshing change from the quick effects apps that are in large supply. I don't mind the sounds and animation as this seems reminiscent of a retro 30's era game replete with island sounds. Considering photos in my traditional darkroom take longer than 80 seconds (my aren't we all into instant gratification!), it's not too bad. This is an app that after you take a bunch of photos, you can spend time experimenting with different developing formulas or the numerous recipes that are provided. I like the safelight,on switch, and lightheartedness of the app. For an extra $1.99 you get an unlimited subscription and more developers. I found it under the photography category under release date. Funky and fun, looking forward to seeing what people do with this app.
LOW RESOULTION!!! I'm very upset and let down. I did about 20 different test runs with the "high quality prints" both on and off. Every one is coming out at either 340x480 or 640x480. I'm very bummed out by this. Any advice would be welcome. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
@xwhiteboy777x I was having the same problem on my images. Check the original size in the photo application that you took the image in. I didn't realize that one app I used to take pictures with was set to a lower resolution. Once I changed that everything worked fine in SwankoLab.
@Chris I am very aware of the original size of my pics. I went through and tried several different photos. I even used 2 different size Hipstamatic pics from the old version and the updated 150 version. Out of 20 test shots I got 20 tiny pics. Thanx though.
I'm sure that in the end Synthetic Corp will work it out. I guess for now I'll just keep loading pics to see what happens. If I get a different result I'll make sure and post it here.
@whiteboy
did you go to the settings under you iPhone then to the swankolab tab and enable high resolution images?
@Robert Yes...I figured I'd check out the settings before I started whining. HAHA!
I am loving this app. I am not having any resolution issues at all. I have already started creating different formula combinations to use and I am saving them. The results are vcry good. I am pretty sure I am going to pay the extra $1.99 and get the extra chemicals. The animations dont bother me too much, I think they are kinda cool and inventive.