support.bibblelabs.com

robok · Joined: 23 Jan 2007 Posts: 67

I had put off downloading Light Room for a while, and did so only recently.

It has its pluses and minuses. I am a RAW novice so it would be hard for me to judge it.

Bibble +'s
* It seems Bibble has a stronger batch orientation
* plug in architecture - i like this for a number of reasons, extending the product
* much faster for me compared to LR beta4 (hard to know how much faster v1 will be)
* product focus (not trying to be all things to all people)

Lightroom +'s
* slick interface
* stronger meta data support
* majority of workflow in one product (browser/catalog/editing)
* set of overall presets listed on the screen which can be highlighted and previewed
* better sorting/culling of pics

I think both get very strong RAW results, and I have been getting very familiar with Bibble.

I know there are a few here that use iMatch+Bibble, and I am tempted in that direction. I think for me it is Bibble+something on the front end, vs. LightRoom.

I did search the forums for other comments about LightRoom, but if anyone else is interested in sharing their thoughts about this very different products, I would be interested.

philipstorry · Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Posts: 50

I think you left one thing off the Bibble list - fantastic support and community!

I'm only just getting back into photography myself, so also new to the RAW thing. But the Bibble learning videos on the website helped me make sense of the idea of workflow - and reading the forums gave me a reassurance that I would be supported and helped should I run into any problems.

I'm sure Lightroom will have plenty of articles in shiny colour magazines telling you how to get the best out of it soon enough. But those magazines will cost you five bucks or more, whereas the forums here are free. Ask a question, and you get an answer.

(Of course, as you found in another thread, the answer might come from an idiot like me. At least I haven't charged you five bucks for it though!)

I find it difficult to believe Lightroom can compete on that point. Very Happy

irvin · Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Posts: 35

ippolitois · Joined: 01 Jul 2006 Posts: 301

Bibble is faster, more flexible and leaner than Lightroom. It has Seans plugins that make it more complete. The Library function is a waste of time and a resource hog. Bibble has all the controls required to process RAW files and it has a cloning tool.

Lightroom has the ACR tone curve, but has really crappy noise controls and very weak sharpening tools which they even admit. It has a nice printing tools and pretty to look at. But if you really need noise control and sharpening for your raw conversations, then save your money.

Paul

chschulz · Guest

I tested Lightroom Beta 3 and 4 and wasn't too impressed. Sure, its eye-candy is tempting, but it didn't worked well for me. There are too many limitations, users are forced to a specific workflow, it wasn't very stable at all (ok, beta - can't judge about the final). I haven't had much use for the library and slideshow features and when it comes to the core features - Bibble does a better job in RAW conversion if you ask me. And with a price almost twice as much, I'm happy I've got Bibble. As for the organizing and cataloging - I strongly recommend to have a look at IDImager. Amazing Tool, highly customizable. There is a "send to Bibble Work Queue" included, and you can define Bibbles *.bib Files as custom Sidecar Files for your Raw Images (Pro Version only). Haven't found that anywhere else yet. Just look it up on the Internet, I don't wanna link it here, thats probably too much advertising and I'm not getting paid for that.

paulgh · Joined: 06 Apr 2006 Posts: 16 Location: Manila, Philippines

My view (as a hobbyist and not a pro) is that I am tempted by lightroom. Like aperture, it is more of a "photo developer" than a "raw converter". It allows me to have an identical workflow, whether the file is a cr2, dng, tiff or jpg. I am accumulating quite a collection of tiffs from scans of old slides. I like the idea of not caring what the file extension is, once it is imported into lightroom.

From my testing of the lightroom betas, I am finding that on most of my photos the lightroom conversions are just as good as the bibble conversions. On the others, bibble wins because of the noise reduction, lens correction or sean's plugins. But on these - I can still use bibble, export a tiff or jpg to lightroom and "stack" it on the original raw file.

So lightroom is tempting. Think I will wait for a bit, while the introductory low price is on offer and see what pans out. Will not buy lightroom when it goes to full price, that' for sure.

Paul

ferdinand-paris · Joined: 18 Mar 2006 Posts: 234

I posted some comments about Bibble in this thread. They were largely made with reference to Lightroom (and to a lesser extent Silkypix), and so you could read it as a comparison if you like. Lightroom has better highlight recovery. Quite a lot better. I do think that its tone manipulation controls, while not perfect in the beta, are nonetheless quite sophisticated. But its images are lower contrast and the colours are generally not as good. These latter two things are a matter of taste of course. You can choose to use it as you DAM, but like some others, I prefer Imatch.

F_P

raytrace · Joined: 11 Jan 2007 Posts: 11

Hi!

I want to make some testing with Lightroom. For that reason I like to open some of my existing RAW-files together with the already existing bib-files. Is there a possibility to import bibble files into lightroom?

By the way: As long as there is no lens correction for distortion in lightroom it is absolutely no competition for bibble - but the GUI looks fine ... Wink

Any suggestions?

Thank you

Wolfgang

robok · Joined: 23 Jan 2007 Posts: 67

THANKS to all for comments, a couple of specific replies....

claudermilk · Joined: 04 Nov 2005 Posts: 871

I am one of the IMatch + Bibble users, and FAR prefer that over LR. IMHO LR's cataloging is so inferior as to be worse than useless. I was underwhelmed by the conversion and really didn't care for the usability of the interface. Yes, it's very pretty, but to me it promised more than it delivered. So, to me nearly all of your listed plusses for LR are in fact minuses. Of course, this is all my own opinion.

As for using PS, I would suggest taking a look at two books: Bruce Fraser's Real World Photoshop and Martin Evening's Photoshop for Digital Photographers. Those two books really lifted the fog for me & now I feel competent with the basics--and know where to go looking for a well-crafted explanation of some more advanced features & techniques (for example, the use the picture to mask itself trick--I don't recall exactly how to do it but have used the books to successfully pull it off before).

So, in a nutshell for me there is no better toolset than Bibble + IMatch + PS.

robok · Joined: 23 Jan 2007 Posts: 67

chino · Joined: 30 Sep 2006 Posts: 6 Location: Euroland

I want a nice real folder structure explorer thingie to go with my RAW app. LR doesnt have that, one has to "import" the pictures into a database and organize it in "shoots". I truly hate that. Bibble will be perfect for me once a couple of bugs or not very well working items have been fixed (e.g HR recovery, and the occational freeze at 88% when saving files, overall stability) and a few new features will be introduced, like multiple snapshots of an image.

aussiedavid · Joined: 14 Feb 2006 Posts: 41 Location: Australia

I've been using Bibble & iMatch for sometime now they work together very well.

IM does my web albums for customers, gave up on Bibble, watermarking & batch remaming when needed. Love IMs proof sheets. Only -ve is rather slow digesting ORFS for slide show & ranking.

Have had a fairly good play with LR it is not worth the money IMHO, yes it will get better, have a zillion plugs ins added, etc.. by then I will be even more happy with the improved Bibble.

Bibble will be stronger in v5, my -ve HR is HL (hopeless) it is not as usefull as it was when I purchased, web gallery no good, cannot handle in camera NR ORFs. I can live with the odd lock up. I print out of Qimage so the print from RAW is not an issue either. A channel mixer would be nice but I think Sean has just finished his, have not checked it out yet.

So for the moment Bibble is in....LR is out

ad

raytrace · Joined: 11 Jan 2007 Posts: 11

Hi!

again my question:

Can I import my Canon cr2-files together with the bib-settings into Lightroom?

No matter wether bibble my be the more sophisticated app or not. Just importing some already developed files and compare the settings...

Thank you

Wolfgang

afx · Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 11:16 pm Post subject:

Wolfgang, someone would need to write a program that parses bib files and does the equivalent operations in LR. I do not think you will find anything there.

cheers
afx