Hydra

Hydra Pro 3 - HDR Image Editor

April 2013 - Photoshop User Magazine
By Erik Vlietinck in English

I found it to be one heck of a simple program, while still providing ample creative control.
Hydra Pro 3 has excellent automatic alignment and ghost-removal features, but even better, you can manually adjust these with intuitive tools, such as the X-ray feature, to align images. The ghost-removal feature is just as intuitive and more powerful than any competitors' products.

Hydra Pro 3 HDR image editor (review)

February 4th 2013
By Erik Vlietinck in English

Hydra Pro 3 proved to be simple to operate and offers ample control of the creative process.
For most scenes, Hydra Pro 3 will have all you need and that’s good news as it is a great program in more than one respect. For example, the automatic alignment and ghost removal are nothing short of excellent.
Better yet: you can manually adjust these with intuitive tools, such as the “X-Ray” feature to align images. With Hydra Pro 3 it’s very easy to create a perfectly aligned HDR image that contains no stray lines.

Veelkoppig opkikkeren

Nr. 99 - March/April 2012
By Hans Erik Hazelhorst in Dutch

Hoewel de beeldkwaliteit van digitale camera’s met de dag verbetert, laat de contrastomvang van menig foto - het verschil tussen de lichtste en de donkerste partijen in het kiekje - nog heel wat te wensen over. Nieuwe camera’s, waaronder die van de iPhone, gaan dat probleem te lijf met een functie die HDR heet, voluit High Dynamic Range. Als je fototoestel dat snufje ontbeert, beweert Hydra van Creaceed een goed softwarematig alternatief te bieden. (...)
Sinds de eerst versie van het pakket, besproken in MacFan76, zijn aardig wat verbeteringen doorgevoerd. (...)
In de loop der jaren hebben de makers plugins voor Apples Aperture en Adobe Photoshop Lightroom aan het pakket toegevoegd. Ook die werken in Hydra 3 weer net wat beter. (...)
Over de functie om zogeheten ghosts te verdrijven, zijn we juist weer bijzonder goed te spreken. (...)
De Tone Mapping manipuleert de beelden verder dan een camera kan bereiken en de resultaten stellen zeker niet teleur.

Bien choisir son logiciel HDR

January/February 2012
From Compétence Photo Magazine in French

Le logiciel est très agréable à utiliser et il excelle dans les rendus photoréalistes. Les fonctionnalités de la très récente version 3 sont complètes, sans excès de complexité.

The best apps to create High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos

October 19th 2011
By Beau Colburn in English

If you're comfortable with iPhoto, you will feel at home in Creaceed's Hydra. From the app's icon to the user interface, Hydra feels very much like a native Mac app. Creaceed only produces products for OS X and iOS, and it show in the little details.

Preview de Hydra 3, le HDR repensé

October 4th 2011
By Arnaud in French

Le fonctionnement d'Hydra 3 est simplissime (...)
Hydra propose une méthode pour supprimer les ghost, ces fantômes d'objets en mouvement qui apparaissent à des endroits divers sur votre série de clichés (par exemple, un personnage qui se déplace). Une méthode automatique donne des résultats acceptables mais il est aussi possible de "détourer" vos objets ghost et sélectionner quelle itération vous voulez conserver ou effacer. Et là, c'est un peu plus de boulot mais c'est fort efficace.
Hydra 3 est une version majeure, qui améliore en tous points la version précédente. Le logiciel devrait ravir les photographes exigeants. (...)

Dipping my toes into HDR with Hydra 2.3

March 21st 2011
By Tristan Jud in English

The best part about the plugins is that it isn’t a watered down version of the standalone software, so it’s fully functional with only some minor layout changes. (...)

Well with a little bit of practice it could become a fun plugin/standalone app to play with. One thing I want to mention again is that taking a good HDR shot is actually very difficult. So many aspects need to be right but when you get it right the results are amazing. The user interface is pretty easy to use along with all the controls, all that's left to do is get the right scene and everything should be a breeze.

Hydra – Application Review

October 21st 2010
By Barrie Smith in English

Hydra is a superb and easy to use piece of software. It has an amazing range of controls. It is easy to use. What more do you want?
Obviously, Photoshop has an HDR function, easy to use and powerful. I tried both. See for yourself and decide which you prefer. My money goes on the Hydra horse. Nine heads and all!
There are plenty of people who turn their noses up at the thought of HDR, claiming it muddies the shot, removing the drama of a normally exposed image. I’m a bit with them… but Hydra delivers a different product.

HDR pour Aperture et Lightroom

May 2010
By Mathieu Lavant - Vous et Votre Mac nr. 56 in French

Avec Hydra, la création d'une image HDR est une opération des plus simple (...)
C'est à l'étape de la fusion qu'Hydra fait la différence avec d'autres logiciels. Il suffit en effet de cliquer sur l'onglet Fusion du panneau Infos pour afficher instantanément l'aperçu de l'image HDR, (...)
Simplicité d'emploi, rapidité, qualité du rendu... Difficile de trouver des défauts à Hydra, (...) Hydra est à l'heure actuelle la meilleure solution commerciale pour créer des images HDR à partir de votre gestionnaire de photographies.

Hydra: High Dynamic Range (HDR) Made Easy?

April 3rd 2010
By sbalani in English

The software manages to produce Images in a variety of output options form TIFFS to PSD’s to simple Jpeg’s making it easy to incorporate into any workflow. The quality of the images are of a high enough caliber to compete with Photomatix, although it may not be as visible thru these Images due to the compression for web, but Noise Levels are low, and detail and sharpness is well maintained, as well as colors. (...)

Hydra, l’HDR reso facile

March 22nd 2010
By Tiziano Dal Betto in Italian

Ho provato per voi Hydra, prendendo a prestito le immagini che possono essere trovate nella pagina di Wikipedia in inglese sull’argomento HDR, e il risultato finale è, effettivamente, molto buono. (...) Ottenere un risultato come questo è semplice e automatico. (...)

Software Review: Hydra 2.1.3

October 7th 2009
By Paul Fatula in English

Hydra can produce good quality images with better dynamic range than your camera can manage alone, with a minimum of user effort. If you tend to think of post-processing digital images as more of a pain than a pleasure, Hydra may well be your least painful route to HDR images.

Hydra cria imagens HDR em aplicativo para o Mac OS X ou plugin para o Aperture

May 31st 2009
By Rafael Fischmann in Portuguese

O Hydra é oferecido pela Creaceed em duas versões: uma independente, em software para o Mac OS X, e outra em formato de plugin para o Aperture, o gerenciador de fotografias profissional da Apple. Visto que o funcionamento de ambos é idêntico, optei por este último, já que sou um usuário de longa data do Aperture. (...)

Hydra, un logiciel HDR pour Mac

May 13th 2009
By Entraks in French

la dernière version d'Hydra a apporté beaucoup d'améliorations par rapport à l'ancienne version: prévisualisation plus rapide, alignement des photos meilleur, sauvegarde plus rapide... (...)
On aime:

• L'interface "user-friendly", très aisé à utiliser. Bien conçu pour les Mac
• Le rendu HDR généré qui préserve la qualité des images
• L'outil Alignement
• Le logiciel en Français

(...)

Hydra 2 Review

March 8th 2009
By David Sparks in English

Whenever discussing HDR software, you can not ignore the 800 pound gorilla, Photomatix. I’ve owned Photomatix for some time. While there are several new tools to fine tune your image in Hydra, Photomatix still has more granular control than Hydra. However, Photomatix also is more expensive, comes with a steeper learning curve, and takes longer to use.

Even though I own a license to Photomatix, I’ve done all of my HDR work in the past six months through Hydra. Without really thinking about it, I’ve discovered the speed, ease of use, and ability to perform the HDR function from within Aperture outweighs any benefits from the additional features in Photomatix. If you want to try your hand at HDR, give Hydra a chance. The pictures look stunning and there is no pain involved in operation.(...)

Hydra 2.0

March 3rd 2009
By Richard Geiger in English

Creaceed has a great manual in the PDF format. The manual was easy to read and helped the user to understand the program. I was pleased that company spent the time to write a manual. In this day and age many software companies only have a help database that you have to search through to find the answers to your questions.

Hydra 2.0 is an easy to use HDR program that will help you capture photographs that you have not been easily able to do in the past. Most people would not have attempted to take certain pictures because it was too hard for the average user to pull off. Hydra 2.0 changes the game for the average user to make good photographs in high contrasts areas. The cost of the program makes it is reasonable for most users.

How To Make Your Photos Look Better Than They Look

February 9th 2009
By Alexis Kayhill in English

An easy, simple, almost self-explanatory interface. If you can handle iPhoto, you can handle Hydra. You also get output photos with stunning richness, the whole reason to add higher dynamic range to a photo.
The end result is photos which look more like the photos you used to envy but now show up on your Mac as your own creation. (...)
There are other Mac apps and utilities which improve photos, though each reaches a point of diminishing returns for the wannabe pro in each of us. Hydra is easier to use than most, provides similar HDR output, and costs less. (...)