RAW processors are getting better with each generation, enabling photographers to produce and manage images of unparalleled quality. The competition is very fierce, with prices ranging from free to over $400, from quick apps aimed at casual users to professional tools. Following up on my previous articles, I am comparing the top 5 RAW converters to see which one is better for you.

If you wonder why it took so long, it’s because with each version, I take the time to become familiar with each application and explore its strengths and weaknesses. I spent in total three weeks with the programs and the test images.

Table of contents

1. The lineup

For this test I selected:

Aperture 3 – Apple;

Bibble 5 Pro – Bibble Labs;

Capture One 5 Pro – Phase One;

DXO Optics Pro 6 – DXO Labs;

Photoshop Lightroom 3 – Adobe.

2. Test images

One of the biggest challenges for this review was finding RAW images in my collection that would be readable in all five programs. My workflow is DNG-based but unfortunately DxO 6 and Bibble 5 don’t support DNG. Some other RAWs from compact cameras were not readable by DxO and Capture One. Also, I wanted flawed, challenging images. I believe that test images should not be perfect – how would I be able to check chromatic aberrations if the image was taken with a razor-sharp, $2000 lens? Or how could I evaluate highlight recovery for a perfectly-exposed scene? Or noise at low ISO?

So if you look at the images in the test and wonder why they’re not so good – it’s because I selected them to be like that.

3. Interface

All programs in this review have remarkably similar interfaces: dark/gray color schemes, tabs/stacks and sliders. By looking at their previous version, one can see how they’ve copied one another. Still, it’s easy to spot the leaders and the followers, the ones who employed usability tests vs. the ones designed just by the development team.

Aperture 3

Aperture 3

As with any Apple software, Aperture 3 is polished to perfection. It manages to combine Library/DAM functionality with editing in a seamless way. For example, you can process any image while in browse mode. Also unique is the Light Table mode, an idea so simple yet so effective, which lets you arrange images – including variations of the same image – freely on a virtual table, drag them around, pan and zoom. You can also edit images while in Light Table mode.

Different adjustments (called ‘bricks’) can be added or removed and – very interestingly – multiple instances can be added on the same image. The usefulness of this feature is a bit dubious except for some very specific cases and it may confuse newbies since some bricks, like the Noise, are not added by default. Once added, a brick can also be enabled or disabled. Overall, I found this way overly convoluted.

Aperture’s Full Screen mode is very slick but I found it a bit impractical with the panels on top of the image. It’s a matter of taste.

Bibble 5

Bibble 5 Pro

Bibble is more of a mixed bag. They changed the UI completely from version 4 and copied many concepts from their competitors, but it’s still a bit confusing as buttons are all over the place. Also, many of its features are very crude, like the image management or the print features.

Some simple operations are also needlessly cumbersome, like cropping or rotating and others are unintuitive.

Capture One 5

Capture One 5 Pro

I absolutely love Capture One’s interface. It’s polished, simple and logical. It’s very easy to find the tools and the tabs are arranged in the proper order – from capture to details. It also doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not. It does not have a ton of half-baked features, but it’s focused on capturing and processing photos with ease. Just the Focus Check feature is a great little productivity tool, and its Tethered shooting feature is second to none.

DxO 6

DxO Optics Pro 6

DXO suffers from the same problems as Bibble – a rather confusing interface, with options arranged not very intuitively; for example, why is White Balance (a basic setting) placed after DXO Lighting (an advanced feature)? Still, in terms of speed and stability, it’s a huge improvement over DxO5.

Importing and exporting are cumbersome. First you must drag-and-drop files from the file system to a project, edit them and then drag-and-drop files from the project to the output queue. It just feels tedious for me, without enabling any advanced behaviour.

Whenever you want to change the color balance or correct distortions, the program will go in before/after mode, which can be frustrating.

The interface also feels slow, the slowest of all programs I’ve tried. It was also the only program that complained of a security feature in Windows (Data Execution Prevention – DEP), which leads me to believe that it has a serious problem in its codebase.

Lightroom 3

Lightroom 3

Lightroom has a simple and intuitive interface with parts that can be easily shown or hidden easily. You can easily customize the interface to fit your own workflow, turn panels off, even customize the “nameplate” to your company name – a nice touch for when you’re working with a client.

Like Aperture, it aims to be a full DAM but after 4 years it still hasn’t convinced me. Unlike Aperture, you have to jump from Library to Develop all the time as some operations are available in both modes, while others in just one of them.

On the other hand, its unlimited History, Snapshots, Presets and Variations are top-notch.

4. Features

Each program has its strengths and weaknesses. Initially I wanted to have a simple table with checks and crosses for the features, but then I realized it would not be fair to compare Lightroom’s print features with Bibble’s, so I opted for a color-coded comparison.

The topics are:

DAM features : features like face recognition or geotagging, ease of use, reliability, etc.;

: features like face recognition or geotagging, ease of use, reliability, etc.; Print : Print options, proofing, preview and overall versatility;

: Print options, proofing, preview and overall versatility; Slideshow : whether or not it supports slideshows and what features it has;

: whether or not it supports slideshows and what features it has; Web : Export to web sites such as Picasa or Flickr;

: Export to web sites such as Picasa or Flickr; DNG : If it has DNG support;

: If it has DNG support; Cameras : number of supported cameras;

: number of supported cameras; Lens corrections : number and quality of lens corrections, including chromatic aberrations, distortions, fringing and perspective corrections;

: number and quality of lens corrections, including chromatic aberrations, distortions, fringing and perspective corrections; Local adjustments : brushes, gradients and layers support.

: brushes, gradients and layers support. Tethering : basic and advanced support;

: basic and advanced support; OS : Operating Systems support – Win/Mac/Linux.

: Operating Systems support – Win/Mac/Linux. Plugins: whether or not it supports image processing plugins and how well they’re integrated.

DAM Print Slideshow Web DNG Cameras Lens correct. Local adj. Tethering OS Plugins Aperture Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent Good None Good Good None Good Bibble None None None None None Good None Excellent None Excellent Excellent C1 None None None None Good Good None None Excellent Good None DXO None None None None None None Excellent None None Good None Lightroom Good Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent Good Good Good Good Good

Legend Excellent Excellent/Full Support Good Good support None Basic/Limited support None None or very limited

In terms of DAM features, Aperture 3 is king, with its seamless features, faces and geotagging support, light table and easy filtering. Lightroom 3 is pretty good but nowhere near.

Lightroom 3 and Aperture 3 are almost equal when it comes to printing, making slideshows or exporting to the web, these are relatively small features anyway so their absence in the other programs shouldn’t be a determining factor.

DNG and camera support is however a big factor. I have RAWs as old as the concept itself and I want my files to be readable. Here Lightroom 3 shines, with over 350 models recognized. Its next competitor, Bibble, has about 180 models, whereas DxO comes in last with about 100 models. It’s true that all new & popular models are supported so not all users may care, but in some cases, wide support is a must.

DxO 6 is the unchallenged master in optical corrections – after all, they specialize in lens benchmarking. If you have a supported camera and lens, the precise corrections are great, and even if the lens is not recognized, you can still apply most of the corrections – sharpness falloff, light falloff, distortion corrections, even fish-eye corrections. The most impressive feature would be the keystoning, which lets you easily correct perspective distortions – a must-have for architectural shots (not everyone has a tilt-shift lens). It also has a built-in color rendering for emulating different film looks and more. Lightroom 3 comes close, but it can’t correct sharpness falloff and, while it can correct perspective, it’s not as powerful as DxO. Aperture comes in last, with no distortion corrections, only chromatic ones.

Bibble 5 takes the number one spot when it comes to local adjustments. Whereas Aperture has many brushes and Lightroom some brushes and gradients, Bibble comes with full brushes and layers, offering limitless adjustments. You can set parts of the image to have different WB settings or any other setting. It’s simply unmatched. At the oppositite end, Capture One and DxO offer only dust removal brushes.

Tethering is Capture One‘s territory. You can sense that this is a tool intended for studio photographers as everything is refined to help professionals.

Bibble 5 is the only program available for Windows, Mac and Linux, while Aperture is Mac-only.

Finally, Bibble 5 offers nicely-integrated plugins, followed by Aperture, whereas Lightroom has more limited support, something I’m sure it’ll cost them in the future.

5. Image Quality

5.1. Portraits

The photo below was imported in each program, using “As Shot” WB and leaving all settings to default.

Portrait colors (default settings, WB as shot)

You can see that all programs nailed the colors pretty much OK with only Capture One 5 bringing more blue in the shadows. The differences were mainly in brightness and contrast, indicating different default curves. Personally, I find Aperture‘s version as the best and Bibble the worst.

5.2. Nature

Color Tones

This is a study in green. Again, settings and White Balance are left to defaults, letting the programs show their interpretation. It’s hard to say which one is better; Capture One 5 produces the image most similar to the original JPEG; Aperture 3 and Lightroom 3 look very similar, DxO’s is the brightest one, while Bibble’s looks a bit dull (I tried all Look Profiles). Interestingly, I needed to apply a +0.5 EV adjustment in Lightroom to match the exposures obtained by the others by default.

5.3. Vibrancy

Here we go one step further, allowing adjustments of brightness, contrast and vibrancy/saturation to achieve the best look.

Vibrancy

The original image is quite dull due to atmospheric haze and time of day. All programs do a good job at improving the colors, but I think Lightroom 3 does it best, followed by Aperture 3and Bibble 5 . DxO 6 gets the plane right but not such a nice sky, while Capture One 5 , having no Vibrancy but only Saturation, misses it. I could further improve the colors by using the various color editors to selectively alter hue/saturation/brightness, but I wanted to use only global changes.

Note how in all images I was able to remove the big ugly dust spot visible in the uncorrected top left image.

5.4. Enhancements

We’re now going to try something more challenging.

Enhancement

In this test Aperture reveals a flaw: it can bring a lot of luminance detail from the highlight area but loses almost all color information. Capture One also exhibited a strange issue – its High Dynamic Range Highlights slider affected too much of the midtones in the cathedral, so I had to dial down. Bibble was able to extract the most highlight detail thanks to the Perfectly Clear feature but again got the midtones wrong. Good results from Lightroom and DxO.

5.5. Edge sharpness & surface smoothness

Here are some 1:1 crops:

Edge detail

Lightroom 3 produces a very clean image except for the ugly halo on the sky, which looks even worse if you look at the full image. Aperture 3 and Capture One 5 versions are very similar, very sharp but with some artifacts. Bibble 5 has probably the most balanced image in terms of sharpness vs. noise, demonstrating the superiority of its licensed Noise Ninja technology. DxO 6 gets the same halo as Lightroom and also some shadow noise in the blue channel.

5.6. Detail extraction

Detail extraction

I can’t decide between Bibble 5 and Lightroom 3 on this image, they are both very good. Capture One still has the tendency of leaving speckles, this is something unnoticeable in a print, but with more and more images intended for screen, it may be a problem in some cases.

5.7. Noise reduction

The first image is a 6mm x 4mm detail area, shot at ISO3200. For reference I also shot a version at ISO100.

Here are the 1:1 crops:

ISO3200 Noise reduction

All programs do a good job, although Lightroom 3 clearly produces the best image. I am surprised the Bibble 5 didn’t manage to do better. Capture One 5 produces an image a little too soft, while DxO 6 and Aperture 3 leave artifacts.

Now let’s try something more extreme:

ISO12800 Noise reduction

The image above is a crop from a macro image. The area represented here is just 3mm x 2mm, shot at ISO 12800.

Lightroom 3 is really outstanding here, considering the unprocessed image. Bibble’s version is a bit too dark and, like the previous sample, it shows some speckles. Aperture 3 comes in last despite all my attempts to improve the quality.

5.8. Chromatic aberrations

Purple fringing correction

All images can correct lateral chromatic aberrations with similar effectiveness, so I decided to test just purple fringing.

The image above was shot with an old lens that was not intended for digital sensors. As such, it tends to produce severe fringing on white foreground objects (the hand is also a little out of focus).

DxO 6 and Capture One 5 manage to completely eliminate the fringing. Aperture 3 does it too, but a little less effectively. Bibble 5 and Lightroom 3 fail this test, removing only parts of the color and leaving the luminance the same.

5.9. Lens and Perspective corrections

Shadow recovery and perspective corrections

Except for Aperture 3, all others were able to correct the distortion induced by the relatively inexpensive wide lens. DxO 6 and Lightroom 3 were able to take it further by correcting the perspective as well. Here DxO is superior in every way as its keystoning tool was able to easily and accurately correct the perspective, whereas with Lightroom I had to fiddle with the X/Y/Z rotation sliders (usually an image needs to be adjusted on more than just one axis).

DxO 6 was also the best at bringing the details from the shadows, with a nice, balanced, detailed and contrasty image. Lightroom 3 came in second. Bibble 5 and Capture One 5 were the least effective (the result is not clearly visible at this small resolution but on the full-size images it was very apparent).

6. Speed

Speed comparisons are not very fair, as we’re comparing apples and oranges – some programs offer more advanced corrections so it wouldn’t be fair to say that they are slow when they also offer superior quality. Also, speed is dependent on many factors and will vary greatly from image to image.

Having said that, I found the differences in speed to be really insignificant. Bibble 5 is still the fastest and DxO 6 is still the slowest, but the margin is not wide.

7. Pricing

Quality is not the only factor in making a decision. Let’s see how competitive are the prices:

Apple Aperture 3: $200 USD

Bibble 5 Pro: $200 USD

Capture One 5 Pro: $400 USD

DxO Optics Pro 6 – Elite Edition: $300 USD ($150 USD for Standard Edition)

Adobe Lightroom 2: $300 USD

Note: DxO differentiates Stardard and Elite based on the supported camera bodies. High-end (full frame) digital SLRs require the Elite edition.

8. Conclusions

Four years ago, RAW processors were wildly different in UI, features and image quality. With each iteration, the gaps have shrinked, with significant improvements being offered even in point releases (Capture One 5.1.2 has better noise reduction support than 5.0). Because of that, differences are becoming minute, impossible to judge unless “pixel-peeping”. It’s only in edge cases where one can truly say that software X really made a difference.

Aperture 3 made a very good impression in me. It produced the best colors “out of the box”, it has a seamless workflow, excellent DAM features, some nice features and it’s priced attractively. It has its downsides, namely poor support for optical corrections and not so great noise reduction. If you’re a Mac user, Aperture is a solid choice for any kind of photography. Highly Recommended.

Bibble 5 has many great ideas but suffers from lack of attention to the details of UI. With other programs, you can feel how each tool is in its right place to better suit the user. Bibble also suffers from the lack of DNG support, a stance I simply fail to understand considering that it’s such an often-requested feature. Some other features seem to be present just to be able to list them, but are too crude compared the competition. On the plus side, the layers support is extremely powerful, and the licensed technologies Perfectly Clear and Noise Ninja help in producing superior images. Recommended with some reservations.

Capture One 5 Pro has the opposite approach from Bibble. Relatively few features, but very fast workflow, ability to quickly judge images, advanced tethering support. It’s still very expensive and hard to justify as a recommendation outside studio shooters.

DxO 6 used to be the king of optical corrections, but the competition is closing in fast. Its “lens modules”, finely-tuned and optimized for each camera are an asset as well as a liability. If your camera and lenses are supported, DxO will give you the best optical corrections, vibrant colors and great dynamic range. Recommended.

Lightroom 3 is the all-around reliable solution. It does not have any overwhelmind advantage over the others, but it supports almost any RAW format and has all the right features. The noise reduction algorithm is on par with Noise Ninja, optical corrections are almost (but not quite) as good as DxO but it has the DIY advantage when it comes to lenses: you can generate your own profiles. In a few hours, I was able to calibrate all my lenses for results almost as good as those given by DxO. The DAM features are not as good as in Aperture, but it can provide better quality in images. Highly Recommended.

9. Buy online

This review was made over three weeks of testing. If you found it useful, please consider purchasing your software from Amazon at discounted prices:

Note: Only the above programs and versions are available through Amazon.com. If you are interested in the others, please refer to their respective websites.

[box style=”tip”]The latest RAW converters preview for 2013 is now available. Read it![/box]