LinuxPhoto.org
The place for all photography and linux fans
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licence:
commercial, 69$ for Lite version (one OS licence) and 129$ for Pro version (cross-platform licence, some additional features, see below). Free trial available. Licence entitles user to have all updates within the same release (if you bought bibble 4.1 you can use all versions of bibble until 5). Check out Bibble site to see some additional info about upcoming version 5, because in the moment when I write this words all those who buy Bibble 4.9 will have Bibble 5 licence for free.
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dependencies:
libc6, libxext6, libxft2, libxrender1, libxrandr2, libfreetype6, libfontconfig1, libexpat1, libstdc++5, libz1, libgcc1
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about: Bibble is a professional RAW workflow, a direct competitor of Capture One, Aperture and Lightroom. It is a commercial software that is released under windows, OSX and linux (natively, no emulations). It is a fast, fully featured application with very effective batch processing, plugin interface (plugin SDK is freely available, just email the company asking for it and explaining what do you plan to do), color management and all kind of tools photographer may want. Still it is not an editor. It does not allow selective editing (excluding patch tool) or Photoshop style retouch. All tools are applied to whole image in fixed order (no brushes, no masks, no layers). This application may be used as Photoshop plugin (Lite version works as Photoshop Elements plugin), but it is a standalone RAW workflow.
There are two versions of this software available: Lite and Pro. Differences are noticable but not essential as all tools and their quality is the same. Pro users can do tethered shooting (as far as I know tethered shooting is not supported under linux), take advantage of their multicore CPU, have more control over noise ninja tool (noise ninja license needed for that), more advanced copy/past, IPTC suport and work queue. If you can live without them and want to use Bibble on one OS only - buy Bibble Lite. If you want to have cross-platform licence and some of Pro feature you can always check it installing a trial.
Installation is very easy since binaries are availeble as deb or rpm.
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GUI and workflow:
Bibble has a bit weird GUI (see "known problems" below) but allows user to freely customize the application. All tools are separate windows that can be docked. This feature allows to take advantage of multi display setup with ease. No additional configuring, just drag the windows where they should be, and if you have a single monitor, dock them.
Batch processing is very easy. Just do all the edits you wish to do (all changes to the image are saved in small .bib file automatically, so no opening, or saving is needed), select the images you want to process, and put them (using keyboard shortcut or drag and drop) into a specific batch queue. Every batch queue has its settings. You can select destination folder, image settings (actual, default or from previously saved file), file format (tiff, png and jpegs are supported), image size and some more. Those batch queues are a powerfull tool for doing automated conversion. Of course Bibble supports 16 bit output (tiff and png), and there are some DAM tools. Users can rate images (up to five stars), edit IPTC (Pro only), or send selected images to work queue (usefull to isolate good photographs from a session, Pro version only). All operations are saved in .bib files so they are non destructive. One (but quite big) issue is that there is no way user can have many .bib files associated to one RAW, so there is always only one variation of image.
Generally Bibble is created to be usefull, not beatiful. There is no fancy GUI in Aperture style, but everything can be tuned to fit ones needs (image preview and image browser tabs have selectable background color). I wish there was some more work on tools menus. Now they are very usefull but could be a little more clear (some color or font variations for active tools etc.). If you wish to have a good looking app - well... you will be disappointed, but if you are a pro looking for a handy tool, Bibble is right for you.
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processing images:
Processing images is really fast. There are numerous tools (starting from white balance and sharpening, ending at chromatic aberration and vignetting correction) that really does its job well. Live preview is quite fast as well as image opening. Just click it and when you see it in preview window do the corrections. When you are done simply click another one, no saving needed. If you process many images use copy/past tool to rapidly apply selected settings. It is extremely usefull and user can select what kind of settings he wants to copy, so there is no problem if you rotate image and then apply settings from non-rotated one (just don't past the rotation). If you want to change default settings (for example you have done a studio session, and want to have white balance, exposure compensation etc. to be fixed) just save current settings as default. All images that do not have it's .bib file will be opened with new, default settings.
One of many greate features of Bibble is that it does not apply any default tools to the image without user knowledge. Most of the competition apply some denoising and sharpening even if user turn them off, therefore many claim that Capture One (or others) do better demosaicing. Maybe they do, but it is impossible to have a fair comaprison since they do not provide a pure, non-processed image. Just remember that if you want to turn something off in bibble you need to uncheck the tool. Moving slider to minimum value provides minimum strenght of the tool, but does not turn it off (this is a common issue with highlight recovery, people do not turn it off and claim that there is something wrong with highlights.)
Another great feature of Bibble is that it allows to turn color management off. I know that color management was created to give better results but there are situations (for example a BW conversion) where photographer will get better results without it. Color management may be set to "monitor proofed" (just select the icc profile in preferences), "ICC proofed" (this skips monitor profiling, so you don't have double profiling if your window manager is already profiled), and "none". For most of the time stick to "monitor proofed", but if you have problems with some images (if you want to have dark shadows with smooth tone transitions) try "none". Image will become very dark and you can start experimenting with it. Just remember that turning color management off in Bibble mean that it is really off. All tools that need it will stop working (contrast, sharpening). If you find it difficult - just download free plugins (there are plugins that do sharpening, contrast correction, nearly everything what is needed). They work even if you turn color management off.
Writing about Bibble without writing about Noise Ninja is impossible. This state-of-the-art noise reduction algorithm is build into every Bibble. If you want to have more control over it you need to buy a Noise Ninja licence from Picture Code, and a Pro version of Bibble. Still even Lite provides user with the best among all RAW developers/worflows noise reduction. If this is not enough, Bibble incorporates Perfectly Clear, an Athentech Technology one-click-do-all algorithm. It is one of the best automated enhancers. I personally do not use it since I prefere manual tweaking, but many like it. Remember that it interferes with Bibble's tools. Some of them are simply turned off when Perfectly Clear starts to work, and if you turn them on again the results are sometimes unpredictible.
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plugins: Plugins are really cool since cool people started to write them. They work as normal tools (so can be docked etc.), and most of them are free (some are even provided with standard installation of Bibble). Check Bibble forum to see fresh information (there is section dedicated to 3rd party plugins). There is no point in writing here about them, since they are constantly changing, just bear in mind that they are usually a really good job, done by professionals. You can find gems like BW wet darkroom simulator (select film, paper, exposure and see the results) and advanced channel mixer, some other, like spectrum plugin or a plugin to calibrate image using color checker, is on the way. Site with most of the plugins, and links to others can be found here.
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known problems: Bibble used to be unstable on my PC, but I have absolutely no problems since 4.9. It works like a charm. Still there are other users reporting problems with Noise Ninja (crashes during batch processing), or other issues when folder or a batch queue contain hundreds of images. One of most common issues is so called "pink highlights". Just tune highlight recovery settings to get rid of it (remember to uncheck the tool if you want to turn it off).
The biggest drawback is setting the GUI. It is a horror. Imagine that clicking cross that closes window with the tool does not close it but make it hidden, so you will have it when you reopen Bibble. To close the tool permanently you need to click it and select "remove tool". But this is not all. You can rearrange the GUI moving tools from place to place, but their order is saved as they were created, so after restart everything will be in original order. This mean you need to create tabs with tools in the order you want to keep them. It is really frustrating. This must be solved in future versions.
There are also minor issues with GUI and image refreshing (it goes back to default view and then apply tools, so watching the difference between settings is hard).
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conclusions: Bibble is not a toy, and does not fit amateurs needs. It is a professional tool, for processing rapidly hundreds of images.