Bibble Pro 4.10 is a Camera RAW conversion application based on an open plug-in concept. The Pro edition comes with AthenTech’s Perfectly Clear plug-in, a technology that dramatically enhances an image. The Perfectly Clear technology is available for photography and signal processing (e.g. X-ray photos gain incredible clarity and detail with this technology). It also comes with a basic version of Noise Ninja, the best noise reduction tool on the market. If you own a license to the full Noise Ninja tool, Bibble Pro will let you activate the full version. An impressive number of third-party plug-ins can be activated in Bibble Pro 4.10 as well. One of them, for example, will make Bibble Pro act like LightZone --using Ansel Adams’ zone theory to enhance images.

The downside to all of this: a chaotic user experience with so much to learn, try and use, it makes your head spin --literally. Bibble Pro 4.10’s interface looks dated, and it is. In a couple of months, Bibble 5 will be released, and the preview of the new interface looks very promising.

But we’re dealing with version 4.10 now. Bibble Pro supports Open RAW, which means most cameras that can shoot in Camera RAW are supported. It’s also regarded by many photographers as one of the best RAW engines currently available. Bibble Pro has a workflow component as well, which I wasn’t too impressed with --much too complicated in my opinion. However, it does support batch processing, which makes it suitable for commercial use.

Image Results Excellent

Bibble Pro’s conversions and the resulting picture quality were very impressive. I tested the print quality of the application by outptting the same image from Aperture and Bibble Pro. To get the same target result, I had to adjust and experiment twice as long in Aperture than I had to in Bibble Pro. I repeated this with Lightroom, with roughly the same result. Only SilkyPix Studio gave me the same quality output, but here as well, I sent a little more time with tweaking the image than with Bibble Pro.

Bibble’s secret sauce is the plug-ins and technologies it uses. Perfectly Clear is simple amazing. Noise Ninja is the best tool for the job. Other plug-ins (or modules, whatever you like to call them) work just as good. There is a lens correction tool that works well, and a chromatic aberration tool that works perfectly. There is even a sensor defect tool that works in automatic mode once it’s been set up.

Bibble Pro is fully multi-threaded and it shows. It’s the fastest RAW application I’ve worked with.

I’ve done the rest of this review in multimedia format (24MB!), i.e. a narrated video. This multimedia review is the first and it’s far from perfect, so please bear with me --the next one will be far better.