Bibble 5 Review

The long over due, and highly anticipated upgrade from Bibble 4.x is finally here (http://bibblelabs.com/). Bibble Labs intended, and in fact promised an upgrade by the end of 2008. Well, that time came and went. They apparently ran into a number of development issues but were strangely quiet about what was really going on. Many in the Bibble user community speculated that the developers were attempting to put in too many features, mostly in regard to blending DAM (digital asset management) and RAW conversion in the same product ala LightRoom. Speculation was that all this was more than the small group of developers could handle. During the course of the past year, they unfortunately lost a lot customers due to the very long delay in releasing the product. The flip side is that they have released an excellent product that for many was well worth the wait. Bibble was well known for being one of the first, if not the first vendor to support new RAW formats as they came out. Hopefully they will reinstate that policy now that 5.0 has been released.

When you first open B5, your reaction might be that you've accidentally opened your copy of Lightroom. In fact not only are the colors similar, the layout of tools and other elements is nearly identical. This is obviously not a coincidence. Lightroom's interface is pretty well organized and intuitive. Its no surprise that Bibble chose to mimic it. B5 takes the interface a step further in that it's interface is a bit cleaner looking than Lightroom's. Like LR, you can collapse tools and tabs as needed during your workflow. What's missing is the ability to completely reorganize or even remove elements of the interface. This was a nice feature that B4 had. Hopefully this is something that will reappear in 5.1.

Asset Management
Digging into the guts of B5 is where B5 stands on its own. The first, and most obvious of the new features is asset management. B5, like Lightroom and some others, uses the concept of libraries and catalogs. At first this can be a bit daunting to those who haven't used it. However, following the tutorials can get you up to speed with catalogs very quickly. One of the advantages of B5 over the competition is that asset management is optional. You can work from the file system if you have DAM software that you prefer using instead, or if the file system is more comfortable. You can also work with a hybrid approach. That is, one way to work might be to import folders into a catalog, yet leave the original files in the respective directories, and even copy the directory structure into the new catalog. As you get comfortable with the library/catalog concept, you can slowly move to using it exclusively. The option to use both catalogs and the file system has negated my need use ACDSee as my asset management application. It is however necessary to use catalogs for a number of functions, such as Persistent Edit History; Image Searching by filename, EXIF, IPTC or other metadata; Metadata Browsing; Arbitrary Image Stacks; and Off-Line Image Browsing. Synchronization between catalogs and file system changes is not fully mature yet. More robust and automated synchronization is planned for version 5.1.

Selective Adjustments
Another major change from B4 is the ability to use layers and make selective adjustments. Yes, you read that right. Layers. In addition to selective editing of colors you can now target specific regions using layers. Got a photo where the contrast is just too much? Add a layer, create one or more regions around bright areas, then adjust exposure settings. Do another layer for the darker areas. Click on the main layer and you'll see what it looks like “flattened”. This is so powerful that one Bibble developer said on a forum, “HDR? We don't need no stinkin' HDR”. The best part is that this is very fast and easy to use. People have been requesting layers in LR for some time. B5 has it now. One thing it doesn't do is transparency, though there is at least one plugin that promises this functionality.

Speed
The third major improvement is speed. Bibble's new tagline is “Photographic Workflow at the Speed of Light”. That's not just a cute marketing blurb. At the 2008 Photokina, a beta version of B5 was demonstrated that showed lightning fast speeds, not only with on screen renditions of edits, but with batch processing of large numbers of images. Even on older machines such as my 1.7 Ghz Celeron with 2GB RAM, B5 is dramatically faster than B4 was, and is noticeably faster than LR 2.6. B5 is engineered to take full advantage of multicore processors and multithreading. The later of which no one else in the industry does very well. On my dual core work PC, B5 runs lightning fast. However, B5 is still a 32 bit application. That may, or may not be a drawback for some users. Users are reporting excellent performance on 64bit Windows 7 and Linux.

Raw Editing & Conversion
Of course the most important part of a RAW conversion tool is its ability to process RAW files. B5 has all the tools that B4 had, and of course those are what you would expect for RAW conversion. White balance, exposure, saturation, contrast, highlight recovery, fill light, and a nice curves tool. There are also several important additions, though many conversion tools now include these or something similar. These include sharpening, noise reduction, color correction, and color balance.

Sharpening is pretty straight forward basic sharpening. You can adjust amount and sensitivity. There were plugins available for B4 that provided advanced sharpening. I expect to see B5 equivalents available in the near future.

Basic noise reduction is provided by Noise Ninja. For light amounts of noise it works very well. If you already own NN, all you have to do is enter your license key to enable the full version within Bibble. This feature was part of B4 but was more of a plugin. It is now integrated into B5.

Advanced color correction is completely new for B5. Not only can you tweak 6 color channels selectively, but you can pick colors from the photo for even more granular control. And color balance, while getting common in RAW editing tools, is new for Bibble 5.

When using catalogs, a full edit history is maintained for each photo. One can go back to any point to view how changes have affected the image. If you use only the file system, edit history is only kept for the current session. Closing Bibble will then clear the history.

Bibble's model has always been to make non-destructive edits to RAW files. The difference with B5 is that the edits are now stored in .xmp files or the catalog instead of the old .bib files. B5 does use a proprietary .xmp file (distinguished by simply appending .xmp to the file name after the extension. For example, myphoto.cr2.xmp). The good part is that non-proprietary metadata can be exported out to standard .xmp files to share metadata with other applications.

Editing with B5 is nothing but a pleasure. Fast and smooth, easy to navigate. Look profiles are provided to give a starting point for your file. They are not customizable at this time. However, presets are and can provide the same functionality. While B5 can probably suffice for 95% of a photographer's needs, there is always a need to use another app like Photoshop. While not straight forward, a given file can be accessed by selecting “Show Master File Location” which shows a file system view, then selecting the file and opening it in the desired app. Again, this is clunky, but it works.

Other Stuff
A small, but very welcome addition is B5's ability to edit both .jpg and .tif files in addition to RAW.

Bibble also is available multiple platforms, Windows, MAC, and Linux. The Pro version allows you to run a copy on more than one OS as well, but not concurrently.

One of the strengths of B4 was the ability for 3rd parties to create plugins. Bibble was doing this long before other RAW converters. Since the B5 architecture changed, many old B4 plugins have to be rewritten, and many are not able to be ported over. So for now the selection is a little light. B5.1 will have even better plugin compatibility. So there is great potential for enhanced plugins sometime in the 1st quarter of 2010. Look for a host of new and powerful plugins in the next few months.

The Bad Stuff
Without a doubt, B5 is not perfect. In addition to some interface clunkiness, its missing several small, but important tools. Perfectly Clear (a “hyper” autolevels tool that many users miss. See: http://www.arcadiasoftware.com/pp-perfectly-clear.html), the heal & clone tools, black/white/gray pickers in the curves tool, and web gallery output are a few. These, and more, are all promised for version 5.1. I personally would like to see soft proofing as well. Not all new features of 5.1 have been announced. Most of the what is expected to be in 5.1 were things that the developers intended to include in the release of 5.0. That being the case, some might view the release of 5 as premature. However, Bibble Labs decided that it was better to get out what they had rather than delay even more.

Conclusions
For those who have a lot of time and energy invested in Lightroom or other products, Bibble 5.0 may not make a compelling case to switch. But if you are looking for a RAW conversion and Asset Management tool, the features and price point of Bibble 5 Pro ($199.00 US) makes it a very competitive alternative. Bibble still has the best support and user community I have ever encountered in ANY software. The developers themselves are very active on the Bibble support forums ( http://support.bibblelabs.com ). There's nothing better than asking a question and having the person who built the feature personally answer back. And this even on weekends and holidays! Of course, they offer a free 14 day trial, so you can decide if Bibble is for you. 14 days not enough you say? Send them an e-mail and they will gladly extend the eval period. As of this writing, Bibble 5 Lite is not available. It, as well as its feature list and retail price, will be made available when 5.1 is released. If Bibble follows the same pricing model as they did for B4, I expect Lite to be somewhere in the range of $100 US, and a feature set that is very close to that of Pro, with only two or three “professional” type features missing.