[Steve]

It gets better chaps

Pixmantec RawShooter Premium Customers Gain Bibble Power at a Discount - for a Limited Time

AUSTIN TX, (June 27, 2006) - Yesterday, Adobe announced the purchase of
Pixmantec ApS technology assets, and noted that RawShooter Premium will be discontinued. As a result, Bibble Labs is announcing a discounted competitive upgrade path for current RawShooter Premium customers.

"Adobe's announcement validates the need for competition amongst RAW Workflow applications like Bibble Pro for photo professionals and enthusiasts alike" says Eric Hyman, president and CEO of Bibble Labs, Inc. "Since our inception in 2000, we've been committed to developing the best cross platform RAW Workflow application, and to bringing value to our customers - both current and new - through powerful tools and frequent upgrades and are happy to provide an upgrade path for Pixmantec's existing customers."


The limited time, discounted upgrade is available to all current RSP customers with valid proof of purchase, and offers Bibble Pro for $99.95, a $30 discount over the retail price. "This upgrade provides a robust, supported product alternative for those customers of Pixmantec affected by this acquisition. By becoming Bibble Pro users now, RSP users will enjoy the speed and quality Bibble provides, as well as our established history of product improvement and upgrades - like those in Bibble Pro 4.8, launched just days ago." RSP users interested in this upgrade offer should visit Bibble Labs - Professional Photo-Manipulation Software for additional details. "RSP users may choose to wait for Lightroom to eventually ship to gain additional features or camera support. Those that want to upgrade sooner have that option with Bibble, and for a limited time at a large discount over our normal retail price."

Bibble Labs has launched three major upgrades this year to its Bibble Pro and Bibble Lite applications. Each upgrade has introduced major new features, such as inclusion of Noise Ninja technology and Perfectly Clear as well as support for new cameras, and improved conversion speed and quality. "With Raw conversion being such an important part of many people's workflow, we know the importance of a product having both a history and a future. Supporting our customers is important to me personally, and to Bibble Labs as a whole" says Hyman "and one way we do this is by offering upgrades with powerful new features as often as possible."

Availability:

Bibble is available in both "Pro" ($129.95) and "Lite" ($69.95) versions for Windows, Macintosh (PPC/Intel) and Linux. For a limited time, Bibble Labs is offering a $30 discount on Bibble Pro for registered RawShooter Premium customers. Please visit our web site at Bibble Labs - Professional Photo-Manipulation Software for details on this offer or to download a fully functional 14 day trial version.

[silkstone]

That's timely. I downloaded Bibble Pro earlier today to give it a try. Does anyone here have experience of it? It looks OK at first glance, but here comes another learning curve.

[Steve]

I have tried both Bibble and capture one some time ago but found neither to be as intuative as rawshooter. I have no doubt that they are as powerful and probably have more features but I couldn't hone the workflow to be as efficient. Your mileage may vary though, I would love to read your thoughts on it over the next few days

[silkstone]

My initial impressions of Bibble are mixed. Anything with a 100 page manual is likely to do more than I want, and to complicate matters in the process.

It seems to major on having several different ways of organising workflow and batch processing, which may be fine if you want to process a load of RAW files the same way. I look at each one individually, carry out any adjustments and then press the button to process it. Then I move on to the next while the conversion goes on in the background. Both Rawshooter and Bibble can do this, but somehow all the other options in Bibble seem to make it less straightforward (although maybe that's just because of unfamiliarity).

Rawshooter lets you take a snapshot of the processing parameters and then try a different set without losing the originals. You can't do this with Bibble.

Bibble seems to have all the necessary image adjustment features, although I don't find them quite as easy to use. Again, I'd probably get used to it.

I'm not really criticising Bibble - it's just that it does more than I need, so I probably wouldn't use many of the workflow features. Rawshooter's interface is simple and effective, without needing a complicated menu system or lots of pallettes, whereas Bibble has a more cluttered feel.

Right at the moment I feel that moving to Bibble would cost £60 and give no benefits (to me) over RSP. Unfortunately, staying with RSP in the longer term isn't an option, so I'll carry on up the Bibble learning curve and see where I end up.

[Steve]

Does Bibble have the different cats so that you seperate the pics off into best, good, average and bin? I find that feature invaluable to me and usually assign my shots into the different cats straight from the slideshow.

[silkstone]

No, 'fraid not. This is a quote from Bibble's upgrade page...

"Major features in RSP currently not available in Bibble 4.8 include multiple versions (snapshots), image comparison, image ratings, and automated downloads from memory cards. While we hope to include these and other workflow features in subsequent versions of Bibble products, we do not have today in 4.8."

So the image rating facility isn't there yet.

[Steve]

Thanks, that saves me a heap of time then.

Steve crossed Bibble off his list of possible alternatives

[silkstone]

Yes, it's a pity about that.

The heated debate is continuing on the Pixmantec forum which (surprisingly perhaps) is still up. One of today's comments is...

Bibble Pro has integrated Noise Ninja into their converter and it is fantastic. If Lightroom plans on being innovative they really should at least try and match what is currently avaialable on the market.

Bibble just keeps getting better and better and they have shown a remarkable ability to deliver what their customers want. All that is missing in Bibble is a DAM component. As it stands Lightroom will have some serious competition with Bibble/iView.... that is until MS bought out iView.

Seems there is a war heating up in the Photo Editing/DAM/Workflow tools market.

The general feeling seems to be that Lightroom will be pretty good although it will *not* use any Rawshooter technology. (The Windows beta will be identical to the Mac beta already released - that's official from an Adobe spokesman.) However, LR will also include DAM and printing facilities, and will no doubt cost a lot more than RSP. As it stands in the Mac beta, LR doesn't have a Curves/Levels function.

It really depends on what you want the software to do. If all you need is a RAW converter, there doesn't seem to be anything directly comparable to RSP. If you also want DAM, printing, etc, it's between Lightroom (which we can't try yet on a PC), Bibble, Capture One and Silkypix (no relation!).

We have until the end of July to take up the Bibble offer. Maybe by then we'll know more about LR, so for the time being I'm going to tread water.

[silkstone]

I'll just ramble on about something else I forgot....

Another Good Thing about RSP is that the processing data is kept in sidecar files which reside in a subdirectory to wherever the RAW files are stored. That means you can move/copy folders as long as you also move/copy the .rws sidecar files/folders as well.

AFAIK Bibble stores the processing data in a central database, and I haven't a clue whether this would cope with moving or copying the RAW files from their original location.

[Steve]

Thanks for the information, its all very useful. I have to say that I am not expecting to jump ship anytime soon and only if I upgrade the camera and there is no support for my new model will I be forced to seriously assess the other options. RawShooter already does everything I want from the package so I was never left wanting for anything.

The settings as sidecar files is great, its simple, and it works but it also draws another potential problem for the future. Certainly for the likes of Bibble, C1 pro etc any processing done in Rawshooter will not be compatible and you will have re-process everything (I have 1000's of photos so this is not a task I would look forward to) but that begs the question if this compatibility will be incorperated in future releases of LR...I would gues that it might but as usual with Adobe products, it will be several versions down the line and come at a substantial upgrade cost...even for previous RS users.

[silkstone]

That's the dilemma. Rawshooter will contiue to work, but only until you buy a new camera that isn't supported. At that stage you'll have to move to something else which probably won't read the .rws files created by Rawshooter. So is it better to carry on with RSP or change now, before you create even more data files that will be obsolete?

Regarding Lightroom, the first release does not include any Rawshooter technology and therefore will not read the .rws data. It is unclear whether future releases will, or indeed whether there is any reason for the acquisition other than to eliminate a competitor. If Adobe had really wanted to assimilate RSP into Lightroom, they would have continued to sell and support RSP at least until there was compatibility between the two and therefore a genuine upgrade path.

RSP users have always had the option to switch to Lightroom when available, if they prefered it. The takeover of Pixmantec adds nothing at all to this, but simply takes RSP out of the market.