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I received an email yesterday from Bibble Labs. They’ve updated their very popular raw converter to support the Canon 40D. Could they be the first to market with that support? I don’t know, but the new version is free for existing users and it’s a simple upgrade.

Go try out the time limited trial version if you’re itching to play with your new camera’s RAW files!

Here’s the change log for this release:

Added support for Canon 40D, including sRaw and Tethering.
Added support for Pentax K100D Super
Added support for Fujifilm FinePix E550
Changed Chroma-sub sampling to 1:1 for jpegs > 85 quality
Fixed memory leak causing crash when working with many Olympus files.
Fixed issue with window position not being remembered when it was stretched across two monitors
Fixed issue with images from repaired Canon 350D not being recognized
Fixed issue with trailing white space in a rename string causing a warning dialog to appear
Tweaked Oly 410/510 color profile and default tone curve. (Be sure to purge your cache and reset custom WB’s)
Added extra verification before the original is deleted in Copy queues
Added Lens: Zuiko Digital 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6
Added Lens: PENTAX 70mm 2,4 Objectiv
Added Lens: Tamron 18-250mm F/3.5-6.3 AF Di-II LD

A few links you will find useful and interesting as we start another week.

• Cardboard bounce flash for your SLR using only your onboard flash. I might try this with my Panasonic FZ5
• Protect Your Photos: How to Defend Your Copyright - I have a keen interest in this after my Thieving Duck became a joke email attachment.
• Four ways to bounce a flash - yet more tips on flash bouncing. Why? Don’t you want to avoid that ugly shadow behind your subjects, let alone avoid the dreaded red eye?
• Following on from my previous post on photographing children, here’s a two part series: The Complete Guide to Children Photography - Part I and part 2. I’ll try some of these techniques and post some more photos of Adam!
• What does Paris Hilton have in common with an iconic image of the Vietnam War? Mike Johnston reveals the surprising coincidence.
• Bibble Labs 4.98 has been released and from a brief pla with it last night it appears to show thumbnail images more quickly than before. Recommended upgrade if you use this software!

I’ve been using Bibble Labs Pro for a few months now to process my RAW files but I know I’m not using it to it’s fullest potential.

I should have looked around the Bibble website because their learning center has a number of videos to help the Bibble newbie!

• Bibble Support Forum
• Bibble Learn Center - with the following videos: Getting started, Basic tools, Advanced Workflow, Heal and Patch introduction.
• Support FAQ
• Bibble Documentation

Things I don’t like:

• I can’t believe there’s still no single-step undo in Bibble. It’s either CTRL-R to reset the image settings back to the RAW format, or there’s an awful workaround by copy/pasting the whole image before major actions.
• Bibble crashes. It usually only happens when saving an image. I have noticed that it happens most often when I change virtual desktop so there’s probably a bug there somewhere.

Despite those misgivings, it’s still worth looking at the trial version.

The new Bibble Labs 4.9.5 is out with support for new cameras and six plugins! I purchased Bibble 4.9 a few months ago so i must download the upgrade shortly and give it a spin.

Among the free plugins included in this update are Andy, a Black & White Film Simulation tool that instantly creates stunning black and white conversions by simulating the look of many traditional film and paper combinations, Gina for Skin Tone Correction that can quickly and beautifully reveal more natural skin tones, and Roy for Color Adjustment to deepen the blue in skies or to make other color-based adjustments. Other plugins included can be be used for selective saturation enhancement, multi-zone exposure adjustment and novel image toning.