It has an amazing range of controls. It is easy to use. What more do you want?"
Barrie Smith from the Digital Photography School
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| What is HDR? This certainly happened to you: you went abroad, and took many pictures. You came back home, and were somewhat disappointed when you looked at the photographs. They were slightly different from what you remember. You might have thought: "I am not that good at taking pictures..." And what if the issue was due to something else? Something else is at stake indeed: camera sensors - how expensive they might be - are not sensitive enough compared to your eyes. They cannot cope with the full gamut of light because the sensor has physical limitations (which you don't have, as a human being). So, the difference you noticed was partly due to a technical issue. It also means you can use a technical trick to fix this: HDR photography! High Dynamic Range Photography deals with combining different exposures of the same scene to create a stunning final image, which is called an HDR image. Want to see some HDR examples made with Hydra? Have a look at this page. |
How does it work?Take a series of regular photographs - some are underexposed and some are overexposed - either with a DSLR or a traditional point-and-shoot camera. Import these pictures into Hydra (up to 3 in the Express version, up to 7 in the Pro version), and let Hydra mix them. It will provide human eye-like perception to the output, the HDR image. |
The first image is burnt (look at the sky), and the second one is under-exposed (look at the trees).
Combine them with Hydra to create an HDR image, i.e. an image which is closer to what your eyes actually see.
All parts of this HDR image show good focus and detail.
Express & Pro Versions
2 versions of Hydra are available (each one with specific features). You can find the main differences between Hydra Express and Hydra Pro in the table below.
| Hydra Express 3 | Hydra Pro 3 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Input Images | Up to 3 | Up to 7 | ||
| Batch Processing | No | Yes | ||
| Custom Scope Selection with Probes | No | Yes | ||
| Aperture and Lightroom Plug-ins | Yes | Yes | ||
| Price | $49.99 | $99.99 | ||
| Sold on the Mac App Store | Yes (no trial version) | Yes (no trial version) | ||
| Sold through Creaceed's Website | Yes (trial version available) | Yes (trial version available) | ||
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Each version has the same features whether it is sold on the Mac App Store, or through Creaceed's website (i.e. Hydra Express on the Mac App Store is exactly the same application as Hydra Express on Creaceed's website).
More information about Hydra Pro's exclusive features here.
 Click a vignette to apply the presets to your image. Numerous Adjustment ControlsNext to the presets, there are more new controls awaiting you:
And last but not least, Hydra 3 enables you to work with full resolution photographs which can be previewed in full resolution and in real time. As a photo lover, you'll really appreciate. |
We developed a brand new tone mapper for Hydra 3 to make it much more powerful than the 3 tone mappers available in Hydra 2. This new tone mapper allows real-time previewing on full resolution for the best possible user experience. Moreover, it is fully user-controllable with easy to understand settings. 12 Tone Mapping PresetsFor the 1st time, Hydra 3 offers you a series of 12 tone mapping presets. They will give a fresh new look to your images you might never have thought of.
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Aperture & Lightroom Plug-insPlug-in for Lightroom 3Photoshop Lightroom users are going to rejoice. Hydra is also available as a plug-in for Lightroom 3. So, you can use the pictures of the Lightroom library to render HDR images. Then, they will be automatically reimported into Lightroom and, if you wish, stacked with the input pictures. How to get the plug-ins working?Install the plug-in and the stand-alone version. Purchase a license of either Hydra Express or Hydra Pro, and register your copy of the stand-alone version (only if purchased through Creaceed's website). Keep the stand-alone version installed on your Mac. Then, you can use the plug-in with all features enabled. |
Try Hydra's Lightroom plug-in Plug-in compatible with Aperture 3Hydra talks with Aperture. You can directly import images from Aperture, or export them to Aperture (and the same for iPhoto by the way).Hydra is also available as a plug-in compatible with Aperture 3. You can now create HDR images right from within Aperture.
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 Work on Full Resolution Images Optimized for LionHydra 3 was developed from the ground up to take advantages of the latest enhancements available in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. It includes the fullscreen mode, autosaving and versioning, as well as automatic termination and restart. |
Hydra also features a gorgeous UI all Mac users will appreciate. Moreover, you can work on high resolution images in full size previewing and in real time. The image information display is now more eye-catching so that you can quickly access meaningful data like image format, image size, pixel dimensions, ISO sensitivity, focal length, aperture, or exposure duration. We also implemented the multitouch zoom in/out which will help Trackpad users a lot, as well as refined many keyboard shortcuts for high-end users.  Enhanced Camera Information Display |
Fullscreen mode in Lion
| Share your HDR Images with the World! Following a huge number of user requests, Hydra 3 features many export options for... ★ locally saving your HDR images:
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