Other Picasa negatives are a lack of noise reduction and no highlight recover for overexposed images. Finally, you can't copy and paste edit parameters from one image to another.

Bibble 4.9
Bibble, shown in Figure B, is a professional workflow and RAW conversion program. It comes in two versions, a $129.95 pro version and a $69.96 lite version. The pro version can work as a Photoshop plug-in, adds speed enhancements, advanced copy and paste of image settings, and more. I tried the trial version of Bibble and found some definite pros -- and cons.

FIGURE B


Don't quibble about Bibble. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Pros for Bibble 4.9
I was most impressed, at first. Especially after clunking along with Pentax Photo Browser and Laboratory v3.0. I was amazed to find out that Pentax Photo Browser and Laboratory is powered by SILKYPIX. I would of never have guessed.

Bibble has very fast raw processing. It's non-destructive to original files. All edits are saved in a process file per image that Bibble uses to display, print and export images. The location of these parameter files is fully customizable (i.e., subfolder, same folder, My Documents, and so forth).

Bibble has professional workflow with all the color, tone, and sharpness bells and whistles, noise reduction, and good color control, white balance, etc.

It was nice to see that it supports my Pentax K100D .pef files. Unlike Picasa, Bibble supports copy and paste of image parameters for fast workflow. You can also pick your RAW interpolation mode, if you care about such things. I think most are AHD (Adaptive Homogeneity-Directed) positive now.

Cons for Bibble 4.9
Bibble's vaunted Perfectly Clear feature is not perfect. It works sort of like the "I'm feeling lucky" button in Picasa. Perfect though it may not be, it's still an excellent "gotta get it done in a crunch" enhancement and adjustment tool.

Highlight recovery leaves me wondering. Bibble grays out the highlights and doesn't really recover detail like I'd expect. It puts emphasis on the subjective.

Bibble has a crazy interface which is most challenging to customize. I want my file manager on the left, scrolled thumbnails across top or bottom, the image viewer as large as possible with Exif, exp, ISO, dist, bias information displayed conveniently during image preview.

This information could be in the title bar or border bar somewhere. I don't need camera info, lens info, and all the other superfluous fields that take up screen space. If I worked with the interface more, I'm sure it's capable of doing most or all the things that I want. It just doesn't need to be so hard to get there.

The SGI-style skin is close but not quite dark enough overall. I think that's the right style. Picasa does Windows white. It's ok but I prefer darkroom gray and black when doing those eye-reddening, critical post-processing adjustments.

Print output arrangement in Bibble falls short. Bibble does not evenly space multiple images for batch printing. Two 5x7 photos on an 8.5x11 piece of photo paper should have a gap between the images.