App: Hydra › HDR Photo Studio
Developer: Creaceed SRL
Genres: Photo & Video, Graphics & Design

Hydra lets you create beautiful high-dynamic-range (HDR) images by merging multiple exposures, effectively capturing both dark and bright subjects to make it more natural or to enhance scene drama.

A single photo cannot represent the entire dynamic range of light in a scene due to the physical limitations of the sensor. The picture is either too dark or too bright, or both. Hydra allows you to overcome this limitation by merging a number of photos with different exposure settings and to create a natural image that is much closer to what your eyes actually see. Alternatively, Hydra can also artistically push contrasts to increase drama and emotions in your pictures beyond reality.

This new release of Hydra has been optimized for latest macOS enhancements and it provides native Metal support with maximum performance, in addition to a more modern and simpler user interface.

NEW & IMPROVED FEATURES
- Optimized for Metal.
- Elegant and easy-to-use translucent user interface.
- Automatic or manual image alignment with high-precision live positioning and fine-tuning.
- Manual removal of ghosting artefacts using region delineation tool and per-region output contribution.
- High-precision 128-bit internal format.
- Much improved tone mapping including presets, and live, full-resolution preview.
- Advanced comparison tool of result against original pictures.
- Single or multiple input photos of various formats (JPEG, RAW, HDR, EXR).
- Blazingly fast rendering to various output file types (JPG, TIFF, HDR, EXR) and color spaces (sRGB, Pro Photo, AdobeRGB…).
- Accurate color processing, including support for Deep & Wide Color displays (30-bit, DCI-P3 display of latest iMac 27’).
- Integration with Apple Photos app (input / output).

Credits: World Scenery Photography by Sébastien Degardin, London.

Technical requirements: GPU compatible with OpenGL Core Profile 4.1 (HD Graphics 4000 or newer)

Release notes:
This update brings full support for Apple Silicon Macs.

Hydra has been rebuilt to take advantage of Apple Silicon CPU & GPU capabilities, and to deliver optimal performance in image processing (Metal), and more.

BUG FIXES & ENHANCEMENTS:
- Fixed a crash that could occur when processing a project with image alignment enabled.