[jfalcon7]

I am sure there have been a lot comparisons on these products, but with the latest releases, has anyone done any research?

Pricing is
Lightroom 2 $299
Bibble 5 $149
SilkyPix 4DS $149, SilkyPix Pro $249

Thanks,
John

[WMBP]

I am sure there have been a lot comparisons on these products, but with the latest releases, has anyone done any research?

John,

I have. Lightroom 2.5 is my main processing tool. I own a Bibble Pro license (for v4) and have spent time trying out several of the pre-release versions of Bibble Pro 5. I don't own a license for Silkypix but I threw myself pretty hard at the new version this summer both before and after it was released.

Each program has its strengths.

Well, I should take that back. Bibble Pro 5 has no strengths: It hasn't been released. Worse than that, they're so far behind schedule that it's difficult to imagine the product EVER being released. The last prerelease version that I looked at (about 2 weeks ago) was still very far from ready for prime time. The feature set is intriguing - and very likely way too ambitious.

I liked Silkypix very much, really. It has a couple tools that Lightroom lacks, including a tool for correcting perspectival distortion. It is a somewhat less ambitious program than Lightroom, because it lacks the web and print modules that are a big part of Lightroom (although I admit I never use the print module and use the web module only occasionally).

I get bored with Lightroom occasionally but I keep coming back to it. It's just too good. 99% of what I do with my photos can be done as well or better in Lightroom than in any other program. And equally important, it can be done more efficiently. Lightroom isn't just powerful, it's designed for folks who have lots of images to process.

I think Silkypix is a very fine program, especially in the latest release. But in my opinion, it's a bit overpriced. I don't mean that it's not worth $250 in some absolute sense, but just that in terms of overall features, it's not on a par with Lightroom, and yet they cost almost the same thing. Lightroom's list price at Adobe.com is $300, but you can buy it for $260 from Amazon; I don't know where you can get a deal on Silkypix.

Keep in mind that, no matter how good Silkypix is (or Bibble Pro 5 may be, when it actually appears), products like these from small companies lack the support communities that you get for free with the products from the large companies like Adobe and Apple. There are probably 15+ books available on Lightroom 2, and quite a few on Apple's Aperture, which in many respects is quite similar to Lightroom. There are however no books on Bibble Pro or Silkypix or LightZone, at least not to my knowledge.

I do not mean to discourage you AT ALL. As I said, I think Silkypix is a VERY fine program, especially if you are the sort of person who doesn't take 1000 photos at a shoot.

There are free demos of all of these products available. You should visit the web sites, check out the demos, and perhaps join the forums and see what support is like, too. There is a large element of personal taste here: what works well for one person might be the wrong choice for someone else. And I am personally very pleased that we have options and I'd like to see Silkypix and Bibble stick around.

WIll

[krypticide]

I was somewhat unhappy with Lightroom's RAW conversion for my images, but then I discovered the "Embedded" camera calibration which can be accessed either by shooting in DNG mode from the camera, or by first converting PEFs to DNGs using the Pentax RAW program. The resulting color and contrast is much more pleasing in my eye.

[Hawki]

I have to agree with Will. While other products may have their strengths and exclusive bag of tricks, LR2 is the most complete product and supported to the hilt by both Adobe and the industry in general. I learn something new every day from a podcast, free video tutorial, book, magazine article, etc., etc. Adobe has also listened well to the users ... most every concern I read about in version 1 was addressed in version 2. Prior to LR, I was always trying to organize my images, and never really had a handle on the situation. Since LR, I not only have everything in order, but I do it faster and with a large percentage of the post processing done to boot.

[jfalcon7]

I did download all three demo versions. With the K7 I get the PENTAX digital camera utility which is a subset of SilkyPix 4. In the end I want to see which product renders the best images. I have been playing with LR since yesterday and it is very nice. I am leaning that way just for its organization and its layout.

[Marc Sabatella]

There are other programs worth considering too, of course. If you like the model of integrating image management and processing (eg, LR and Bibble 5), ACDSee Pro (version 3.0 was just released) is also worth a look, or Aperture if you're on a Mac.

[bdery]

Is the Silkypix clone packaged with Pentax cameras any good? I confess I never installed it, I use ACDSee which covers many of my needs, but sometimes I feel batch processing would be quite helpful.

Then again, it's not the processing I enjoy, it's the act of taking pictures.

[Marc Sabatella]

If you have ACDSee Pro, it *does* batch processing, so I might assume you have only "regular" ACDSee. But that doesn't do RAW processing at all, batch or otherwise - all it can do is a "dumb" default conversion.

As for the Pentax software, it isn't Silkypix. It uses the innards of Silkypix, but the user interface is much more clumsy. It can do batch conversions, but only if you want the exact same parameters applied to all images, and hence is extremely limited compared to the other programs being discussed here, which allow you to custom process files, or apply groups of settings to groups of files while letting you still customize other settings, and then do your batch conversion (if necessary) at the end, with each image keeping its own processing.

[bdery]

Thanks MArc.

I currently do not shoot RAW, I tweaked the JPEG output and it satisfies me (heresy or not I don't care). For some images I like to work on the tone curve, saturation, contrast, exposure, to get slightly better results. aybe since I don't shoot RAW I should keep doing exactly what I do : edit the pics that need editing, and let the camera "batch process" the basics.

[dosdan]

Thanks MArc.

I currently do not shoot RAW, I tweaked the JPEG output and it satisfies me (heresy or not I don't care). For some images I like to work on the tone curve, saturation, contrast, exposure, to get slightly better results. aybe since I don't shoot RAW I should keep doing exactly what I do : edit the pics that need editing, and let the camera "batch process" the basics.

RAW comes in handy when you've got a photo you need to do a lot of work to improve, say light behind a person & incorrect WB. What you can do is shoot a session in RAW. Then, you just batch convert the lot on the default settings. You then check the results. If any photos require significant work you go back and adjust in in the RAW converter. With RAW you've got more still there to work with; with JPG you don't - a lot has already been discarded. So you have the option of more flexibility and performance, when required. The penalty is more time & space.

I use SilkyPix Pro, and it has smooth batching. What I do is tag the lot and start a batch conversion on default and then commence examining them as they come out and start reworking the difficult ones and adding them back to the end of the batch queue. SP Pro on a dual-core processor does not bog down useability so I can work effectively while a lot of background processing is proceeding.

Shooting in RAW+JPG mode, would offer similar opportunities to fix difficult photos. You would use the JPGs and only go to RAW when needed.

I found though that once I started using RAW, I really missed it whenever I had the camera output set to JPG and forget to change it back to RAW.

Dan.

[deejjjaaaa]

There are other programs worth considering too, of course. If you like the model of integrating image management and processing (eg, LR and Bibble 5), ACDSee Pro (version 3.0 was just released) is also worth a look, or Aperture if you're on a Mac.

Marc, you are active @ ACD's forums - tell 'em (unless that was reported already) that they can't properly extract ISO tag from Panasonic .RW2 raw files - it comes out as an empty string (I am talking about "<Image:ISO speed ratings>" in ACDSee Pro)... the same error XnView has for quite sometime, but fixed eventually.

[Marc Sabatella]

I'm guessing that the situation is similar to what it is with some Canon models - that the standard EXIF tag isn't used by the camera, but instead the ISO setting is stored (for some unknown reason) in a totally different non-standard place. So programs that want to support those model need to know the magic place to look for it instead, and then lie and pretend this was the value of the standard field. Or can you verify with a program like ExifTool that the value really is stored in that location?

Either way, of course, ACDSee *should* be able to deal with it. But in general, that would explain why they currently don't - they don't tend to do camera-specific hacks like that. But they should, and they also need to be adding more full support for makernotes. I know those are both commonly requested features.

Except for the beta program, the forums are not the place the report bugs - there is a whole support system for that. If you're a customer, I think you should contact their support directly. Otherwise, if you could post a file somewhere, then I could post a message in a private forum that moderators sometimes use to report bugs. But it would really be better to have in their regular system.

[deejjjaaaa]

I'm guessing that the situation is similar to what it is with some Canon models - that the standard EXIF tag isn't used by the camera, but instead the ISO setting is stored (for some unknown reason) in a totally different non-standard place. So programs that want to support those model need to know the magic place to look for it instead, and then lie and pretend this was the value of the standard field. Or can you verify with a program like ExifTool that the value really is stored in that location?

Either way, of course, ACDSee *should* be able to deal with it. But in general, that would explain why they currently don't - they don't tend to do camera-specific hacks like that. But they should, and they also need to be adding more full support for makernotes. I know those are both commonly requested features.

Except for the beta program, the forums are not the place the report bugs - there is a whole support system for that. If you're a customer, I think you should contact their support directly. Otherwise, if you could post a file somewhere, then I could post a message in a private forum that moderators sometimes use to report bugs. But it would really be better to have in their regular system.

any .RW2 from Imaging Resource will do = Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 Digital Camera Thumbnails - Review - The Imaging Resource!

plus another error - when you export raw (again - .RW2 from Panasonic LX3) file to .TIFF for example ACDSee Pro can't write the color profile (you can specify the color profile to be written in a dialog box there) or at least writes it in a way that Adobe Photoshop CS4 can't see it there... this is not happening when processing .PEF files from Pentax.

I am not a customer, that is how trial of ACDSee Pro 3 v3 (build 355) is working and that is a most recently release version as far as I understand...

[deejjjaaaa]

that the standard EXIF tag isn't used by the camera, but instead the ISO setting is stored (for some unknown reason) in a totally different non-standard place.

that documented for a long time, it can't be that their developers are not checking THE TOOL (http://search.cpan.org/~exiftool/Image-ExifTool-7.89/lib/Image/ExifTool/TagN...asonicRaw_Tags)

[mysticcowboy]

You don't need Lightroom to benefit from Adobe Camera Raw. It's included with Photoshop and Elements. Photoshop CS4 and Elements 7 & 8 have ACR 5.x, which is what Lightroom is using. It includes all the editing tools that Lightroom has, though the interface isn't as slick.

I'm not saying that Lightroom isn't worth buying. If you use its ability to define adjustment presets you can do magic to multiple photos at once. But if you edit you raw file individually, you can get the same raw conversion and editing with either version of PS.

I have a Bibble 4 license and have tried the version 5 beta. I guess I've used Adobe products for too long because Bibble didn't seem natural to me. But there is a free 30 day demo of all the programs, so see for yourself.

Also look at Capture One. It can handle some difficult images that baffle the others and its detail and sharpness are tops. It's very pricey though at $400.