This is a personal review of Bibble 5, no more and no less.

Bibble 5 Review
I am a strictly amateur photographer, and had used Bibble 4.x for a couple years. I switched to ACR because I liked the default processing once I tweaked it (though I find the real defaults bizarre with its brightness and contrast defaults). My goal was more simplicity than anything else. My particular use was for a raw converter is to adjust exposure, color balance, fill light and recovery when needed, and also to manage the files (compare 3 similar photos, then delete the 2 I liked least). I don't get fancy with much of anything else, and do more tweaking in Photoshop as needed, and ultimately print from Photoshop because I think it has great printing flexibility. I also recorded some Photoshop actions that would make batch conversions fairly painless once I had reviewed the desired images.

For my review, I put ACR back to its defaults, which included Adobe Standard for the Camera Profile. I included an ACR default and ACR Auto version in some tests, and for at least one Bibble image included a 'Product' vs 'Portrait' Look profile. Though I've read several times that raw interpretation has no standard, I was surprised to find that Bibble has no 'Standard' or 'Landscape' profiles built in (ACR and Nikon Capture NX both provide these). It just seems like Bibble didn't include enough options in their Look Profile, and honestly find them confusing (the documentation describes them, but seems to leave out an explanation of the 'reduced' versions). Looking at Bibble support, I think I'm not the only one who has confusion here.

It's mentioned in the Bibble documentation that you can create custom Look Profiles, but I couldn't find any documentation on how, nor was I able to do it by exploring the software for awhile.

Speed
Bibble is billed as super fast, but on my Intel Code 2 Duo E8500 3.16Ghz machine the difference with ACR wasn't so noticeable (it appeared slightly slower):
62 seconds to build previews for 92 D300 images.
Bridge/ACR: 60 seconds

Image Quality
I wish I could say that I found that Bibble or ACR was definitely better. The truth is that both have ways of working that make certain images look better by default. Since this is raw conversion software, you should expect to review each image and tweak the settings to get the best results from all photos.

The Bibble software tended to bring out more shadows than ACR did by default. Sometimes this lead to more noise in underexposed areas. ACR leaned towards more contrast in images. Bibble seems to add very slight yellow or green to skin tones, probably only noticeable when compared side-by-side to the ACR rendering of the same image.

The Nick image (taken outside in daylight) shows that in this particular shot ACR renders a darker, more contrasty image in Auto mode, and a pretty bright, flat image in Default mode. Bibble 5 seemed to be nicely in the middle here. The 100% crop shows eye details, to show how both skin tones and shadows are handled. I didn't notice a problem with skin tones in this image. I liked the Bibble version best.

The Flash image was taken with 2 SB600s to light the scene. Here you can see that ACR auto rendered a contrasty version, and Bibble rendered a less-contrasty version. ACR default looks like it did a pretty good job of being in the middle. When you look at the 100% crop, the Bibble version has some of the yellow/green in the skintone that I noticed, and the white from the hat doesn't look as white. I liked the ACR default version best.

The Boat image was taken just after sunrise, and like the other shots not adjusted for color. Here Bibble 5 and ACR Auto were very close to each other but it looks like this time ACR Auto pulled out more shadows. ACR Default seemed a bit too dark for my tastes. No 100% crop because I think the entire image shows the differences better.

The Land image is of course a landscape image. Here the ACR Default image seems more saturated than ACR Auto and Bibble 5. Bibble 5 once again seems to have brought out more details with a lack of contrast. This is one of those areas where I wonder why there is no 'Landscape' Look Profile in Bibble. I liked the ACR Def version the best.

Bibble 4 had an issue where blurred lights in the background (bokeh) had a very harsh appearance. While I noticed it in 4.x, I can't say I noticed it in Bibble 5. The Light Bokeh image shows a 100% crop of such a shot compared with ACR. This particular image was at ISO 800, and you can see more noise in the Bibble version because it once again brings out more detail in the shadows.

I recently saw a post that there were noticeable Moiré patterns in Bibble 5. I took a picture (titled 'Moire') of a feather to try and recreate the issue, but I can't say I noticed anything in this area. You can tell that the Bibble seems to have sharpened the image a bit more than ACR did though.


Interface
Both have similar features, and I am considering Bridge as part of ACR. It should be noted that Bridge has to launch ACR when you open an image, where Bibble is all in 1 program. Still, the launch of ACR with an image from Bridge was very fast.

In terms of features of the UI, Bibble certainly gives more options with its layering ability (ACR offers a targeted adjustment feature, but it doesn't compare). Bibble allows you to create layers for individual sections of the photo, and adjust only that section/layer. Bibble’s complete functionality means that it now seems to cross into areas that I commonly use Photoshop for, such as selective shadow/highlight control and selective sharpening. This kind of puts me at odds: I have this great piece of software that's already paid for and I've learned, but now Bibble has so many features that overlap. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can create confusion on where one program ends and another begins. I don't want to learn new software, I want to make pictures.

One feature I love Photoshop for is its printing features, and the ability to have it manage colors with a preview of the print. I haven't printed from Bibble yet, and while it does provide the ability to select various media profiles for printing, it doesn't seem as intuitive as Photoshop, and its preview doesn't seem to be matched with the selected profile. I'll probably continue to use Photoshop for printing for the near future.

Quirks
Bibble5 crashed on me once, when I had added a polygon layer and was adjusted the fill light. I restarted, redid the same thing, and no problem. Bibble is a new release, so I think a crash now and then will probably happen. ACR has hung up on me as well, but they are few and far between.

Bibble 5 no longer has a plugin for Photoshop as 4.x did. It also doesn't allow for opening a photo in Photoshop for further editing (this is easily mimicked by creating an Output batch to save a TIF file to a folder to be opened in Photoshop).

Bibble has a 150DPI default resolution, while ACR has 240DPI.

D300 images from Bibble are 4304x2860 Bibble, while ACR has 4288x2848 (which matches Nikon specs)

Bibble 5 was vaporware for so long, that it became frustrating.

Summary
After testing out Bibble 5, I wish I could say which one was definitive better, but honestly that's just not the case. At default settings each program handles different images differently, demanding per-image tweaking for best results. Bibble 5 gets a nod in the direction of more features, which would mean something if I didn't already have a good photo editing program I was familiar with. Price wise, Photoshop Elements that comes with ACR 5.6 costs about $80, while Bibble costs $199 (A lite version is pending) and Light Room costs about $299.