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Home >> Photography >> Digital Bibble
RAW Converter With the increasing popularity of digital photography and the explosive sales growth for digital SLRs (D-SLRs), the word RAW has become synonymous with digital negative. RAW refers to the proprietary file type that is available from D-SLRs and certain compact cameras, and in theory, is suppose to be the “raw” data taken straight from the capture chip of the camera. What we know as RAW files though are not actually the true “raw” data, because we would otherwise be working with black and white digital files with potentially high levels of aliasing and moiré artifacts.
I believe green is doubled up and used for most histograms because of the sensitivity of the human eye towards green channel information hence it’s the most important color channel. However, with the best of the current digital cameras, we are seeing all three channels (red, green, and blue, or RGB) shown on histogram displays for more accurate exposure information. One would think that after the color information has been interpolated into the “raw” file, that this becomes the RAW file we work with. For some brands perhaps, but with others, such as Canon, the camera may still be doing some additional internal processing before providing a final RAW file. This may explain why some reviewers have noted differences between Canon RAW files, which look smoother and with less noise while Nikon RAW files seem to be noisier, but with greater detail seen. There are also additional filters used in most D-SLRs to reduce moiré artifacts, which can be described as inducing a zebra-like pattern on certain patterns like very fine cloth weave, or color artifacts, as sometimes seen on TV for similar fine weave clothing. Anyway, that’s about exhausted my limited knowledge of the technicalities of digital capture at the first stages of processing. What most people are interested in is what can we do with the RAW file that comes out of our D-SLRs. A RAW file on its own is not much use because many of the popular image editing software and printing applications do not recognize RAW files. A RAW file must be converted to a usable file format such as a JPEG or TIFF in order to be edited, printed, or posted to a website. The conversion process finalizes certain parameters such as the color temperature or white balance, exposure, and other aspects of the image that are not applied permanently to the RAW file by the camera, as they are with JPEG or TIFF files. One would think that because RAW file conversion is an extra step that photographers would simply choose to shoot directly to JPEG or TIFF format in-camera. True enough for most photographers with a need for speed in their workflow, such as news, sports, and event photographers who may take hundreds if not thousands of images and then need to get the best of the bunch to the editors for review and publication in very quick succession. These photographers mostly use the JPEG format due to the compression that allows JPEGs to be much smaller and easier to edit and transmit than TIFF files that are comparatively huge and chew up too much hard drive space. TIFF files also take a lot out of a D-SLR’s resources for in-camera processing and is not often used; some cameras don’t even offer TIFF as an option and effectively, for the majority of digital photographers, the choice is between RAW or JPEG capture. However, not every photographer requires processing speed and many eschew the compromises inherent in JPEG (and TIFF) processing done in-camera. By now, most photographers familiar with the RAW format know that RAW allows some correction of the image in post-production during the conversion process. Many pros like the option offered by Nikon and Canon’s pro D-SLRs, to shoot both a RAW + JPEG file at the same time. They keep the RAW for quality editing when time allows and use the JPEG for proofing or quick submission to an editor. RAW files are like negatives in that you can do some work in the digital darkroom to correct for minor exposure and color balance errors while in-camera JPEG or TIFF files can be likened to slide film, requiring precise exposure for best results. RAW conversion is getting more powerful as each year passes and we are seeing more and more features added to various RAW converters that hold much promise for the future. Some photographers have reprocessed their old RAW files with the latest converters and have reported much better looking image quality than with the older RAW converters. The digital domain affords us with greater flexibility and power to correct such things as chromatic aberration, corner vignetting, key stoning, and barrel and pincushion distortion amongst other lens inherent problems. While all of these corrections can be done in image editing applications such as Photoshop with all of its aftermarket filters and plug-ins, it makes sense to tackle the problems at the beginning of the process when the file is still RAW and still 16-bit (actually 12-bit at this time, but opened up as 16-bit files in software) before we convert to TIFF, or down-convert to 8-bit JPEG files. We already saw this trend in an earlier version of Nikon Capture, Nikon’s proprietary RAW converter for all of its D-SLRs and its Coolpix models that support RAW capture. For example, users of the 10.5mm fisheye lens have the option of correcting the curved distortion of photos taken with this lens with Nikon Capture. Nikon Capture will also allow a snapshot profile to be taken of a reference frame for spotting out dust automatically. While offering all the basic editing parameters such as white balance and exposure compensation, Nikon Capture also provides a Curves window to do more precise fine-tuning of the image file. Even noise reduction can be done with Nikon Capture and some users are finding that they can do without noise reduction applications such as Noise Ninja, something unheard of as short as a year ago. If it seems like I speak too much about Nikon, it’s because I’m a Nikon user and I can only speak of what I know the best, which is not to say that Bibble cannot handle many other RAW files. The goal, I’m sure, is to allow as much editing as possible to minimize the need for Photoshop, which of course has some Photoshop fans chortling at Nikon’s presumptuousness that their favorite editor is relegated to the backseat instead of being in the driver’s seat for all aspect of image editing in the digital domain. Personally, even if I were not a Nikon user, I would still be in favor this approach, to be able to do as much editing as possible in the RAW conversion process without having to edit in Photoshop. Even those that use the latest Adobe Camera Raw can do much without having to resort to Photoshop; however, until RAW converters allow the ability to remove telephone poles and other unsightly background details, Photoshop still has a place for most digital photographers and I would not be without it. As good as Nikon Capture is and is pointing the way towards more advanced RAW conversion in the future, in the current here and now, Nikon Capture is spoken with much phlegmatic disgust by many Nikon users. While many acknowledge that Nikon Capture produces some of the best RAW conversions available for the Nikon files, many have given up on this converter because of speed and stability issues, especially for Mac users (PC users have suffered too). There are photographers who shoot volume and still need the highest quality files from their numerous files. Nikon Capture does not work for them in an effective manner and much angst was poured into so many electrons as photographers expressed themselves on various on-line forums. Add to this speed and stability issue the white balance encryption of the much longed for Nikon D2X camera and we had a huge hubbub of photographers laying the boots to Nikon over its actions. If Nikon Capture were not the pig that it is, the encryption issue would probably have been shrugged off because there would still have been an effective conversion workflow, but it is a pig and a little slugfest ensued between Nikon and Adobe. (The most recent updates to Nikon Capture have addressed the speed issues, but disturbingly, users still have to do much detective work on their own to find out why the application crashes for no apparent reason. It seems that Nikon Capture code is very sloppy and each update leaves multiple versions of DLL files around that can cause crashes.) Somewhat lost in the Nikon versus Adobe row, was the introduction of a new version of Bibble (4.2) that broke the D2X white balance encryption and offered users the speed and stability that they desired. It seemed that the most vehement of Nikon bashers couldn’t be bothered to give Bibble a shot and it was an all or nothing deal of either Nikon fix Nikon Capture, or else provide everybody and their dog with the white balance data so that conversion could be done by all interested third-party applications. What it really seemed like is that those that had been using Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) in the past wanted to continue using ACR as part of an established workflow and could not be bothered to see if viable alternatives were available. It’s a shame though because Bibble is an excellent RAW converter with much flexibility, speed, stability, and good workflow options. And unlike the ultra expensive Phase Capture One Pro that sells for US $500, Bibble Pro is only US $129 and is available in PC, Mac, and Linux flavors. While modestly more expensive than Nikon Capture’s US $99 price, $29 buys you a lot less aggravation of spending hours working on files only to have Nikon Capture crash with the loss of all of your hard work - also keeping in mind that, of course, Nikon Capture is only good for Nikon cameras, whereas Bibble handles so much more. And as competent as ACR is, I've not been able to figure out if it has some kind of batch processing available. If it does it's not very intuitive. Currently, Nikon and Adobe appeared to have kissed and made up, with Nikon providing a mini-SDK that allows access to the encrypted white balance information for the D2X, D2Hs, and D50 cameras, without forcing the host converter application to use any Nikon-originated conversion process, as was apparently the case with the full, but older SDK. Since the original Nikon/Adobe white balance hubbub, Bibble has also been upgraded to 4.3 status with even more speed available for RAW conversion. About Bibble (the company) Back in the Cretaceous Age of digital capture, circa 1999 with the introduction of the groundbreaking Nikon D1 (as far as I know, the first D-SLR with a real world price), RAW conversion was obviously in its infancy and the proprietary converters were…primitive. Enter Eric Hyman, who founded Bibble (named after Eric’s cat, I believe) to reinvent the wheel and in turn gave us one of the first third-party RAW converters. My memory is a bit dim now, but I think Mike Chaney of Qimage was the other third-party RAW converter at the time, despite Qimage being best known for being a great printing application. Digital
imaging basically exploded after the Nikon D1 burst the dam holding
everyone back. Canon quickly got into the D-SLR scene with Kodak
and
The D1x chip is roughly 4000x1300 pixels and the internal camera processing turned that long rectangular chip and spat out a near 3000x2000 pixel file. The D1x (I think) natively took the 1000 pixels from the long dimension and interpolated it back into the short dimension to provide a more traditionally formatted image. However, Eric Hyman and Mike Chaney wondered what was the point of tossing away or re-interpolating 1000 pixels from the long dimension. When the time came to update their RAW converters for the D1x files, they offered their users the option to extract the full 4000 horizontal pixels and interpolate the short dimension to about double, to produce a file size equivalent to 10 megapixels. Brilliant, and in a tip of the hat to messieurs Hyman and Chaney, Nikon later updated their own Nikon Capture to also allow the option to produce a 10 MP file from D1x cameras. A clear example of competition being good, because without Bibble and Qimage offering a new way to convert a D1x RAW file, would Nikon ever have bothered? Fast forward to the beginning of this year when D2X cameras were finally shipping and the brouhaha over the white balance issue, Eric Hyman and his Bibble team (and it really is a team effort these days) worked away and were the first to crack the encryption and produce the first non-Nikon converter for D2X RAW files. So, Bibble has as long a track record as possible for the digital age which I divide up as BD1 and AD1 (Before [Nikon] D1 and After D1). BD1, we had D-SLRs from Kodak that cost tens of thousands of dollars for relatively low-resolution output. These were Nikon and Canon film cameras that Kodak gutted to produce their DCS Pro series of bodies. AD1, we initially had cameras sharing most of the parts with film cameras, but ultimately, we now have cameras built from the ground up as full-fledged cameras in their own right and ironically, film cameras are now being based on digital cameras, e.g. Nikon F6 borrowing parts and features from the D2 series. Only the Fuji D-SLRs are still originating as film cameras and ending up as D-SLRs (Nikon F80 bodies into Fuji Pro S2 and S3 cameras), as Kodak has given up the D-SLR market for now. RAW ConvertersI had used Bibble briefly in the past, during the initial days of buying and using the Nikon D100. The D100 is still going strong and still making me happy, but damn, do I ever want that D2X J I’ve briefly tried most of the known RAW converters available from ACR to Phase Capture One, to the very basic NikonView, and now Nikon Capture 4.3.1. There are a few more out there, but you know, life’s a bit too short to go out and try every single one available, especially if you can find a converter that does what you want it to do as efficiently as possible. It’s only if the converter of choice were not doing what you want it to do that you would go out and seek and alternative, as all those former Nikon Capture users did. For a time I was doing all my conversion through ACR as a convenient one-stop conversion and editing process within Photoshop. This was with the older 2.x versions of the ACR, but after a while I found the colors to be a bit off at times, enough that I found it disconcerting enough to stop using ACR and use NikonView until I finally had the full blown Nikon Capture in-house. I liked how the Nikon software converted the RAW files with colors that seemed more accurate (or at the least, more pleasing to my eye) than with other converters.
However, after reading a few too many horror stories about Nikon Capture’s stability problems, the thought of working on a large folder of images and then all of a sudden having Nikon Capture crash, lurked in the back of my mind.
Since I just happen to have a few large folders of image files waiting to be edited, it would make for a good comparison between Nikon Capture and Bibble. It would also be a good test of how fast and flexible Bibble would be for batch processing. Batch processing is a key feature in Bibble and indeed, it does appear to be very flexible and powerful compared to other RAW converters. Batch processing is quite an important feature and function because instead of opening up images one-by-one and applying the same set of edits over and over, you open up one image and do your edits and then tell the application to apply the same edits to all the other images in the same folder. Ideally, the converter should do this as a multi-tasking job so that while it batch processes the images in the background, you can move on to the next set of images and edit those without any hit to your computer’s resources and performance (obviously, you need a hyper-threaded, dual-core, or multi-processor computer). Bibble is fully multi-threaded, so a batch job won't stall you while it does its thing. The converter’s workflow should also be streamlined and user adjustable so that the photographer can have only the most important editing windows open for the most efficient conversion process. Nikon Capture provides a multi-image desktop that allows you to browse through a folder of images with a large view of an individual file below the top-oriented browser. On my dual-monitor system, I use the larger monitor for the multi-image browser and large editing image view with all the editing windows/palettes open on the smaller, second monitor. I don't really care for the top-oriented browser that much, so sometimes I use NikonView to browse through images and then open them up in Nikon Capture for editing. Other RAW converters have a more streamlined, one-window workflow. Phase Capture One has a browser/file structure located on the left side of the screen with the middle section used for a larger view of the chosen image, and the right side for the editing parameters. It’s a pretty decent workflow, but it’s not perfect because the middle section is not capable of showing a 100 percent pixel view of the image to check for critical sharpness, or how sharpening during the RAW conversion will affect the noise and quality of the image. The speed is nice, but it comes at a price of chewing up hard drive space, as Capture One creates thumbnail and editing images of every file folder you access. Those image files are not temp files that are gone after you close Capture One, but permanent unless you manually delete them. Capture One has become the converter of choice for many Canon users (understandable given how bad I've heard Canon software is.)
RAW may be “raw,” but each converter offers it own rendition of color and while workflow is important, the choice of RAW converter often comes down to which one offers the best looking end image file to work with. About Bibble (the converter) After not seeing what Bibble has evolved to over the last few years, seeing the current version open up was a pleasant surprise. It fits in with the Windows XP look, which I’m sure some wags will say is just a rip off of the Mac OS look, but so be it. The installation process went smoothly on my notebook and desktop computers and initial setup had me choose how I would expect to use Bibble, i.e., whether I would normally open up an image one-by-one, or if I would open multiple images for batch processing. Once complete then I had a look and feel around the Bibble work area to see how flexible the workflow would be. The Bibble environment provides a host of user adjustable options for how you like to work. I generally don't like horizontal browser views because they take up too much space for the larger image editing view. I setup my desktop environment with a file browser/batch/job queue on the left side, vertical thumbnal browser, after that, larger image view, shooting info, and quick edit toolbar on monitor one. All editing windows are placed on the second monitor desktop.
There are the usual editing windows available for adjusting Curves, Sharpness, Exposure, White Balance, and image rotation. There are a few more windows available that one may not use very often, so are normally hidden, but any, or all windows can be made visible depending on which ones the users feels are important for the editing process. I generally like seeing all of them open on the second monitor.
My ideal configuration would be to have all editing windows, shooting data window, and browser moved over to the second monitor so that the main monitor would have a large view of the image. I'm hoping a future version of Bibble will allow that to happen. My main editing monitor at 1600x1200 resolution, allows me to see my D100 image files at 50 percent pixel size, which is quite good for seeing how edits, such as sharpness and noise level settings, will affect it.
With my notebook though, I had to figure out what the best combination of editing window and information would be ideal for the kind of workflow I desired. For many photographers, the luxury of a dual-monitor workstation is not available and the notebook computer is their lifeline for editing and submitting image files to their editors. A notebook is a litmus test for well RAW conversion and image editing can be done because notebooks are typically slower and less powerful than their desktop cousins. My notebook, a Toshiba P20, is not really a “notebook,” but a beast with its 17-inch LCD that is exactly the same size as the 17-inch version of the Apple iMac, a desktop. It weighs in at 10 lbs and has a full-blown Pentium 4 3.2 HT CPU. It has three fans underneath to keep the chip cool and indeed heat can be an issue if I push it hard because I upgraded the hard drive to a faster spinning, but much hotter Hitachi 60 GB 7200 RPM unit. A coworker has the 15-inch version of this notebook and he says it regularly shuts down due to heat when he does some heavy-duty, professional quality video rendering. A gig of RAM rounds out this “mobile” image-editing machine that I also use to create and edit web pages for my websites. As big as the 17-inch screen is, it still isn’t large enough to have every editing window open in Bibble and still have a good browser view, file structure view, and a large enough middle section for the image under edit, as seen in the screenshot below.
The setup below in which I toggle the file browser with the image browser, allows me to view the larger image at 25% magnification vertically and horizontally with all the relevant information I desire and the most important editing palettes open. Your particular setup will obviously be different unless you also happen to use a 17-inch LCD at 1440x900 screen resolution.
Using Bibble Keep in mind that I can only do a very basic and cursory review of what Bibble offers. I would definitely encourage you to download it for the 30-day trial to see if it can work out for your RAW conversion requirements. The 100-page PDF manual looks daunting, but it’s actually quite straightforward and easy to read. While Bibble looks fairly straightforward, it has a lot of power and features under the hood, it’s like a Mercedes sedan that looks conservative, but can do 0-60 in 5 seconds. Eric and his team take great pride in offering the fastest RAW conversion possible, so it’s good to know that there’s a real thoroughbred under the hood ready to let ‘er rip. One of the interesting features about Bibble is the sidecar files created whenever you view and edit RAW files. The sidecar file approach allows you to see edits done in real time, but with no changes or adjustments to the actual RAW file. If you decide to change the white balance, exposure compensation, sharpening, or anything available to you in Bibble, those settings are saved in a tiny 3 kb .BIB file. Close out of Bibble and then come back to the same image and all of your previous edits will still be available to you. Once you convert the RAW file to JPEG or TIFF, the edits are applied for real. White Balance When I wrote about white balance (WB)tools, I found the ExpoDisc to provide the best looking images by using the tool to create a custom pre-set WB with the D100. However, I also tried placing grey cards and other WB tools in a scene and then using Bibble's click white eyedropper to obtain a WB setting. It worked quite nicely to give some good colors.
In this particular comparison, the only edit I applied was setting the White Balance by clicking on the thin white wall beside the pink houseboat. The image processed with Adobe Camera Raw provided the most saturated rendition with Bibble coming next, and Nikon Capture coming in with the flattest version. Which one is better is all in the eye of the beholder and personal taste, and each image could be adjusted to either goose up, or reduce the saturation, but then that would require more editing work. By the way, the very small images posted above do little justice to the differences seen in the full-sized image files. Batch Processing Batch processing is perhaps Bibble's best known feature and one that the Bibble team is justly proud of for providing their users with great flexibility. While most other RAW converters offer some form of batch processing, they are for the most part pretty simplistic. Edit one file and then tell the converter to process all the other RAW file files the same way. For the average user, this is probably all that they will need. For the power user, Bibble offers more features, as seen in the Batch Settings window below. I'll plagerize here and steal from Bibble's manual about some of the features of its batch processing:
Since I'm not much of a power user myself, I normally just batch process a folder of images into JPEG or TIFF files, but I can see how I might like to use Bibble to process a set of images into TIFFs for Photoshop editing, as well as web-sized JPEGs for posting to a web gallery, all in the same batch job. Using a folder filled with images (107 files) taken for some of my 17-35mm f2.8 AF-S lens tests, I recorded these times using my P4 3 GHz HT desktop computer with 2 GB of RAM and 10k RPM hard drives installed. As a point of comparison for how quickly RAW conversion develops, the last time I was using Phase Capture One on a regular basis (about 1.5 years ago), the same desktop (but with half the RAM) would have taken over 30 minutes to batch convert the same number of files.
While a batch job is being done, if you discovered that you forgot some files in another folder, you can simply add those files to a current batch job and Bibble will process as if they were part of the original job. Highlight Recovery
On the rare occasion, if you happen to have taken just the right kind of photo, the Highlight Recovery tool may show a pink cast in burnt out highlight regions of the image. I've only seen this on a couple of images I've processed and in both instances, the burnt out highlights were clouds from a mostly overcast sky. In these instances there's no detail left to recover, so turning off the Highlight Recovery makes the pink cast go away. This artifact may be camera-specific, so just because my D100 files show this artifact does not mean that yours will too.
Highlight Recovery Samples
Highlight Recovery can be subtle, but still effective, but even it can't correct a photographer's major exposure error, as seen in the duck shot example. The use of Bibble's Curves control was used after applying the Highlight Recovery tool to try and eke out something out of nothing. BPTLens Correction Tool
The above sample shows the newest feature added to Bibble 4.3, BPTLens Correction. The image at left is one taken with a 16mm fisheye lens. The image at right is after correction. The drop down list for Nikon lenses is quite extensive with several third-party lenses listed from Sigma, Tamron, and Tokina too, inlcuding some fairly recent lenses such as the Tokina 12-24mm f4 lens for D-SLRs. Very handy to have profiles for so many lenses a simple mouse click away. There are of course profiles for many different brands of cameras and their lenses. Other Features Print Queue - Bibble provides the ability to print directly from it instead of through an image-editing, or printing application. You can print contact sheets and adjust the sizes of the images from a single 8x10 down to many images per sheet by adjusting the column and row settings. Custom printer profiles can be applied for a color managed workflow. I'm a Qimage user, so most of my printing is done through that application after I've edited (if required) in Photoshop.
IPTC editing - for many pros, this is a key feature of their daily digital workflow. It's not a feature that I've ever had a need for, but for news, sports, and other pros that submit images for publication, they need to caption their files before sending to the editor's desk. Noise reduction - I use Noise Ninja for my high ISO files and have generally found this standalone application to be better than other noise reduction options. Below are some sample shots comparing Bibble's noise reduction (mid-level settings) to Noise Ninja (auto-profiling). My daughter at her pre-school Christmas concert in 2004. D100 set to ISO 1600 with the 70-200 f2.8 VR lens.
Conclusion A general survey of a powerful image processing software cannot do justice to every single facet of operation and feature available. Doing so just amounts to a shopping list of features. What I've done in this review is just highlight some of the more interesting features and give a sense of the Bibble worflow. Bibble is a RAW converter that's well worth a look by digital photographers needing a fast, stable application on the road, or in the studio. Eric Hyman (and his team) takes a hands-on approach to resolving issues that may arise with his users and is always open to suggestions for how Bibble can be improved, as I've seen many times on a Nikon digital list frequented by professional photographers. Buying Bibble is an investment in a product that will continue to be developed and improved by a digital pioneer. The D2X white balance debacle (created by a bone-headed Nikon) proved how committed the Bibble team is in delivering a product to the photographic community in a timely manner. Of course, Bibble is not just a Nikon-specific converter, but one that can handle most of the cameras on the market offering RAW capture. If it's my money on the line, I like Bibble's wallet-friendly cost compared to the pricey Phase Capture One and for more and more users, the frustrations of Nikon Capture are no longer worth the risk of having hours of work go up in virtual smoke due to another crash. And that can be worth a whole lot more money to a photographer! Highly recommended! June 26, 2006 - I'm posting a little bit of an update on some of Bibble's newest features that for me, makes it the all-around best RAW converter available on the market (but the market is a moving target with new RAW converters coming out regularly and existing ones always being improved upon). An update or two ago, Bibble added the Perfectly Clear plug-in by Athentech Technologies Inc. This editing feature shows up in the Basic and Advanced editing tabs and makes for a quick and easy edit that brightens the image, improves the color, increases the contrast, and sharpens the image. More often that not, Perfectly Clear is all that I need to click on, but you have to be careful of high-key images that are already or near hot for exposure.
The other significant update in Bibble 4.8 is a more powerful lens correction tool. I haven't used this tool yet, so I'm just showing the editing window at right, for now. Below is how I've setup Bibble on my desktop. Bibble's default is to have all the editing windows in one column on the far right hand side of the Bibble workarea with tabs inside the column to access all the tools, but I like seeing all the tools at once to make editing quick. However, the default is perfect for working on a notebook to conserve space. Below is a screen shot of my dual-monitor desktop with Bibble. With D2X and D200 files being so large, I had to toggle the exposure information off in order to get a large image view at 25% magnification (my preferred working magnification when editing RAW files). I wouldn't mind having the exposure information window floating like the editing windows, so that I could move it to the second monitor.
Althought the new B&W conversion plug-in isn't all powerful (yet), I do like it a lot for allowing me to add in that touch of color into a monochrome image for a bit more pop and pizzazz in my photos. The next logical addition would be for toning, as in cool, neutral, warm, and sepia, with perhaps additional toning options that mimic what can be done in the darkroom, like selenium toning. Other features I'd like to see in future versions of Bibble, a zoom window that can be detached and resized for a larger view and maybe the stacking feature from Apple's Aperture. With the Perfectly Clear, the B&W plug-in, and advanced lens correction updates, Bibble, which I already rated as highly recommened, becomes even more highly recommended. |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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Except
for the Foveon chip, all current digital capture chips are B&W
devices that require a filter to extract color information. This
RGB filter is named after the Kodak scientist that developed it,
Bryce Bayer, and the process is known as Bayer Interpolation. The
interesting aspect of the Bayer Interpolation is that it creates
double the number of green color cells than red and blue. The green,
or luminance channel, information is what is used for most single
graph Histogram displays available on D-SLRs. 
Highlight
Recovery is quite a nice tool to have. It isn't just a glorified
exposure compensation slider, but a tool that mostly affects the
highlights and can save an image that you thought would a tosser
because of burnt-out highlights. You have to adjust the slider to
taste and see how the rest of the image is affected, but more often
than not, I've been able to move the slider all the way to the right
and still maintain integrity in the rest of the image.
The
regular HR slider is found in the Exposure/Tone window, but there
is also an advanced HR window (seen at right) that offers a Threshold
slider that appears to affect the tonality of the highlight regions.
I found the single HR slider to be effective enough without needing
to adjust the Threshold.
In
the most recent update, Bibble added a new B&W conversion
plug-in, which is quite welcome if it did nothing else but
just convert to B&W, but this ain't no one-trick pony.
The B&W plug-in provides for the ability to add back color
into the scene and in most shots, will allow you to do spot
coloring without having to work with layers and brushes. And,
it allows you to do this for not one, but two colors if you
wish. There is a limitation though that can't be worked around
without having to resort to layers and masks. If your intended
colored subject is too similar in tone to another part of
the scene that you don't want colored, you'll end up with
bleed through, as the sample images below show.
