Refugee from Bibble Land

[lenscape]

I've been resisting 'upgrading' from Bibble Pro to AfterShot as I felt utterly let down by Bibble Labs with support and fixes. Bibble doesn't work properly and I'm still using (and depending on) the last version which crashes regularly and simply hangs for minutes at a time for no good reason.

I tried AfterShot a few times when I found Bibble didn't support my GX1 and I used it long enough to discover that the colour presets for the GX1 are all to *** and the lens compensations do not match Panasonic's own. To say that AfterShot "supports" the GX1 seems to be stretching the definition somewhat.

I didn't use AfterShot long enough to establish whether the bugs I've been suffering from have been addressed because it would have meant importing my image library which would have taken *days*. Now my trial period has expired.

I have built up a slick workflow around Bibble with a large collection of scripts that dig into its internal workings so sticking with its descendents is attractive but I am heartily cheesed off with the pain.

I haven't upgraded because I think it is seriously out of order expecting me to pay for an 'upgrade' when I have no guarantee the bugs I've been suffering from have been fixed. Fixing bugs seems be a duty that Bibble Labs didn't consider important and I'd like to know if that culture remains.

(As an aside: If you're going to use the 'Pro' suffix, you really need to make it mean something. If I offered Bibble Labs level of 'Pro' support, it would be embarrassing and I wouldn't be in business. 'Pro' should be about understanding the needs of the professional and making sure your products and services properly meet those needs.)

I need to start planning for the future. I can't continue to use Bibble forever and I'm looking for more than reassuring words that AfterShot is the answer. I'd like a dialogue with someone at Corel about their plans and objectives. I can't bet my business on the chance that they are doing more than just cashing in on Bibble's customer base. One cosmetic upgrade doesn't look promising. What am I paying for, exactly?

Thanks.

[sauron]

I'm not sure I can offer a lot in the way of direct advide, but for what it's worth, here's my perspective - it may (or may not) provide a useful insight...

I've been a user of Bibble since the release of v4.0 - at the time it was the only raw converter in town for Linux, and I was sick of using dcraw pipelines, or windows software under wine. So, I jumped on board as soon as it was released. I paid full price for B4, and I also paid for the upgrade to B5 pretty much straight away when it came out. Bibble has not been perfect, and I feel that the promise of Bibble 5.0 never really got fulfilled, but it was the best game in town. At the point at which ASP got released, I was close to giving up on them - there had been no communication for a long time, the latency from camera release to support was hopeless, and man longstanding bugs remained unaddressed. Also, the landscape had changed - software like Digikam, Rawtherapee and Darktable (especially the latter) were starting to offer serious capabilities on Linux.

When ASP got released, I took up the upgrade pricing offer. I wasn't sure I'd stick with it, but it wasn't a lot of money for an upgrade licence, and I felt that I'd had a lot of free upgrades out of Bibble Labs over the years - indeed, I felt that all those free upgrades could well have contributed to the sometimes glacial pace of development. Since ASP has come out, I'm a happier user. We've seen some real movement, and there seems to be more life in the software again. Plugins have been ported fairly quickly, and some new ones are available. So, I don't think it's cut and dried yet, but the signs are much healthier, IMHO.

I don't think ASP is perfect, but I do believe that it has a viable shot at a decent future now, so I'm willing to put some time in. I don't think you're going to get a dialog from Corel, and frankly, actions speak louder than words anyway. To me, it feels as though it's turned a corner, and I'm hopeful that we'll see good things in the future, including many of the features that have been talked about for a long time, but where there was never previously the resource to make them into a reality. So, YMMV, but I'm talking a positive view these days. Time will tell, of course....

[tomsi42]

A great summary, sauron. I found that AfterShot 1.0 was rather rough around the edges, but still an improvement on Bibble 5. AS 1.0.1 fixed most of my niggles, and if they keep up the pace on bugfixes, the next update will make me a very happy camper, indeed.

[KeithR]

Fixing bugs seems be a duty that Bibble Labs didn't consider important and I'd like to know if that culture remains.

See my "signature" below, and draw your own conclusion.

If things improve in the next release, I'll happily change it - but I'm not building my hopes up.

I'm thinking of adding "broken white balance" to the list, too. I recently spent over twenty minutes trying to get the WB right on an ASP conversion of a 7D bird image from last weekend, before finally giving up: Capture One was perfect right out of the box.