Hydra uses a number of regular photographs (up to four) with different exposures (darker and lighter) to create a superior one which is much closer to what one's eye can see. This is because a single photograph cannot represent the full gamut of light because of physical limitations in the sensor. This process is also known as a high dynamic range, or HDR, imaging. See the screencast tutorials for more information on how to acquire such images with your camera.

First image is burnt (sky), second under-exposed (buildings). Their combination is fine.

The output produced by Hydra is much closer to what your eye actually sees. You don't have to choose whether to have a beautiful sky or buildings, take 2 photos (or more) with perfect parameters for each of them, then combine them with Hydra. 

The images that Hydra uses are not required to be taken with a tripod, as it is usually the case with HDR software. Hydra uses the same warping algorithm as Morph Age, which permits the alignment of images with offsets above a few pixels. This is a unique feature that means you can take photos anywhere without a tripod to later blend them in Hydra. This will change your way of making HDRs.

Drag and drop your photos in the main window, adjust matching, blending. See your images in 2D or 3D perspective view. Screen cluttered? Move to fullscreen. Hydra was built with that streamlined process in mind from the ground up.

To achieve this result, Hydra uses an advanced image processing pipeline that first aligns the various images with a non-linear warping algorithm (CeedMorph technology, same as Morph Age) and then blends them in a smart way to preserve the interesting inputs of each image. This method has been entirely implemented on the GPU to provide interactive previewing. This allows you to finely tune all parameters (matching, blending) in real-time while observing the changing result until you are satisfied, and then render the full resolution image (resolutions above 10 Mega Pixels supported).

Image matching (or alignment) consists of identifying corresponding points in each image. This can be performed either automatically by Hydra, or manually to accurately specify these correspondences with visual feedback on full-resolution images.

Blending in Hydra is easily achieved through an automated process. However, blending parameters are exposed so that you can tune the desired output, by changing the overal influence of individual images, soft or hard transitions, as well as other mixing coefficients. Let Hydra do it, or tune it yourself with full control. You choose.

Hydra uses the latest core technologies provided in Leopard, Core Animation, the latest enhancements in OpenGL, CoreImage and Quartz Composer, parallelized image importing on multi-core architecture, QuickLook, etc. It will put your Mac through its paces, for sure.

Import images directly from iPhoto, build an HDR, and re-export it directly to your photo repository in iPhoto and do as you usually do to share with family, friends through mail, prints or any other means. Hydra is part of the chain.