Create artistic or photorealistic HDR images for Mac

Hydra for Mac

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Hydra for Mac

  -  26.8 MB  -  Demo
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  • Latest Version

    Hydra Pro 4.5.2 LATEST

  • Review by

    Sophia Jones

  • Operating System

    macOS 10.12 Sierra or later

  • User Rating

    Click to vote

  • Author / Product

    Creaceed / External Link

  • Filename

    hydra4_4.5.2.zip

Hydra for Mac 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 also lets you artistically push contrasts to increase drama and emotions in your pictures beyond reality. Very often, a single photo can’t represent the entire dynamic range of light in a scene due to the physical limitations of the sensor. The picture is either underexposed (too dark) or overexposed (too bright), or both at the same time.

Powerful HDR App
Hydra lets you easily create high-dynamic-range (HDR) images from a set of exposures, effectively capturing both dark and bright subjects to make it more natural or to enhance scene drama.

Optimized for Metal
This tool has been optimized for latest macOS enhancements and brings native Metal support for maximum performance. The app comes with a completely rewritten computation and display architecture that is optimized for Metal from the ground up. It provides a high-precision 128-bit per pixel internal format with extremely fast 60 FPS previewing at full resolution.

Image Alignment & Ghost Removal
Because multiple photos are merged, input pictures typically need alignment to compensate for camera motion if no tripod is used. Also, moving subjects in the scene may create ghosting artefacts that must be handled. The app provides an advanced alignment tool to interactively align images against the reference one by locating feature points. You can inspect alignment quality through various 1 to 1 image difference schemes (blue/red, overlay…) or even preview the whole merging result. Full automatic alignment is also provided for simple cases.

New Tone Mapper
Hydra for macOS comes with a brand new tone mapper based on a new technique which is faster, more accurate, and gives more control for fine tuning the details. This new tone mapper allows real-time previewing on the full resolution image for the best possible user experience. All settings get instant feedback that corresponds to the actual output. 12 tone mapping presets are available in the app from which you can start, and then fine-tune the result using the app’s manual mode.

Modern Features & User Experience
In addition to native Metal support, the tool also provides support for lots of modern OS and hardware features, such as accurate color processing that includes support for Deep & Wide Color of latest Mac displays (P3 Retina displays), integration with Photos app, multitouch trackpad navigation and a gorgeous Mac-native translucent user interface. The app also provides more advanced options when needed, such RAW input options, Radiance and OpenEXR input and output file formats, color space choices for image exports, and per-scope tone mapper settings.

Note: Requires 64-bit processor. Some features are disabled.

Download Hydra for Mac Latest Version

  • Hydra Pro 4.5.2 Screenshots

    The images below have been resized. Click on them to view the screenshots in full size.

    Hydra Pro 4.5.2 Screenshot 1
  • Hydra Pro 4.5.2 Screenshot 2
  • Hydra Pro 4.5.2 Screenshot 3

What's new in this version:

Hydra Pro 4.5.2
- Modernization for latest OS & bug fixes


Hydra Pro 4.5.1
- Modernization for latest OS & bug fixes
- Hydra now requires macOS 11 Big Sur or higher


Hydra Pro 4.5
- 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
- Fixed a crash that could occur when processing a project with image alignment enabled


Hydra Pro 4.4
- This update brings full compatibility for macOS 11 Big Sur
- Remodeled the app icon
- Modern style for the window toolbar
- Many user interface tweaks
- Added support for sandboxing for all versions
- Hydra now requires macOS 10.12 Sierra or higher


Hydra Pro 4.3.1
- Modernization for latest OS and bug fixes


Hydra Pro 4.3
- Optimized for macOS Catalina
- Application is now notarized for a better support on macOS Catalina


Hydra Pro 4.2
- Optimized for macOS 10.14 Mojave
- Improved support for dark theme & accent color. Accent color now effective throughout the app, in particular ghost selection & various buttons
- Metal 2 optimisations
- Fixed 8-bit rendering on integrated Intel GPUs that could output corrupt image (Mojave only)
- Fixed 32-bit rendering on discrete GPUs that could output black image when tone mapping was not applied


Hydra Pro 4.1.2
- Added support for HEIF file format when exporting pictures (macOS High Sierra or more recent required). HEIF is a modern alternative to JPEG (smaller files for similar quality)
- Workaround for a “stripe artifacts” problem that could occur for RAW images when the legacy rendering pipeline (OpenGL) is enabled
- Updated crash reporting


Hydra Pro 4.1.1
- Optimized for macOS High Sierra
- Fixed some glitches in the user interface (macOS High Sierra only)
- Fixed a bug that could prevent to add alignment points


Hydra Pro 4.1
- New color grading
- With version 4.1, we've taken feedback into account and developed a new color grading technique for Hydra. The new color grading technique provides more vivid colors by default.
- New color grading technique
- New Vibrancy color control available in the tone mapper
- Improved local contrast that will now reveal more details in the image
- Fixed a crash occurring on Macs with older discrete GPUs
- Finer-grained GPU memory allocation limits to accommodate with a wider range of Macs


Hydra Pro 4.0.4
- Faster image loading for Mac computers supporting Metal in macOS Sierra
- Fixed a crash that could occur when updating the color of the hue setting in the tone mapping
- Fixed project thumbnail selection on macOS Sierra
- Fixed other layout issues on macOS Sierra


Hydra Pro 4.0.3
- Improved compatibility and stability with upcoming OS X release


Hydra Pro 4.0.2
- Improved compatibility and stability with upcoming OS X release


Hydra Pro 4.0.1
- Minor bug fixes


Hydra Pro 4.0
- 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)

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