Hydra HDR App for macOS

December 9th 2018

By Allison Sheridan - Podfeet
in English

I think it’s great that we have all of these options available to us for creating HDR and tone-mapped images.

Mac App Review: Mit Hydra 4 Eure perfekte Weihnacht

December 24th 2016

By Sven Fajfar
in German

Die App ist klar strukturiert und übersichtlich, auf SchnickSchnack wird verzichtet.

Hydra 4, the HDR app, brings Metal support, zonal tone mapping

August 29th 2016

By Erik Vlietinck
in English

Hydra 4 is a speed demon with a significantly faster result than other HDR apps or its predecessor.

Hydra 4 ou le traitement HDR en automatique

August 23rd 2016

By Pascale Brites
in French

Sorti en 2008, le logiciel Hydra est désormais disponible en version 4, avec pour principal avantage des performances accrues grâce à la prise en charge de l'API Metal de macOS.

Hydra 4, crea increíbles imágenes con HDR en tu Mac

August 16th 2016

By Ruben Fernandez
in Spanish



Hydra 4:带我入门 HDR 图片处理

August 14th 2016

By Frank
in Chinese



Hydra 4 neu für den Mac: Großartige HDR-Bildverarbeitung mit Einführungsrabatt

August 12th 2016

By Freddy
in German

Mit Hydra 4 kann man wirklich atemberaubende Bilder mit hohem Dynamikumfang erstellen - auch als Laie hat man hier binnen weniger Minuten verstanden, wie Hydra funktioniert. Wer schon mit der Vorgänger-Version gearbeitet hat, wird auch die hier zur Verfügung gestellten Optionen lieben.



Get HDR Photos With A Click On Your Mac

August 12th 2016

By Natalia Nowak
in English

True HDR often has an issue with image alignment, but Hydra has both automatic and manual tomography computation options to ensure proper alignment.

Hydra 4 simplifie son interface et prend en charge Metal

August 11th 2016

By Arthur
in French

En quelques années, Hydra s'est imposé comme une référence pour traiter ses images HDR sans dépenser des fortunes dans des logiciels professionnels.

Hydra Pro Updated for Mac HDR Photo Creation

August 11th 2016

in English

Say hello to a new alignment tool that can be used for automatic or manual image alignment, providing high-precision live positioning and fine tuning

Test Express : Hydra 4, le roi du HDR sur Mac se met au Metal

August 11th 2016

By Arnaud
in French

Le résultat est étonnant de fiabilité, au même niveau que les effacements contextuels de Photoshop. Chapeau !


Hydra Pro – Software für HDR Fotografie

January 6th 2014

By Tobias Ringel
in German

Hydra Pro 3 ist eine exzellente Software für den Mac um in die HDR Fotografie einzusteigen.
Hydra Pro 3 ist da schon etwas konkreter und ist eine App, die dem ambitionierten Fotografen unterstützt, ein gelungenes HDR Foto zu erstellen.

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.
Article Photoshop User Magazine about Hydra Pro 3


IT Enquirer Logo

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.

Badge from the Dutch Magazine MacFan

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.

logo of the French magazine Compétence Photo

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.

logo of macworld website

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.

French website mac4ever.com logo

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. (...)

website logo

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.

digital-photography-school.com website logo

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.

Rating by the French Magazine Vous et Votre Mac: 4.5 stars out of 5

HDR pour Aperture et Lightroom

May 2010 - Vous et Votre Mac nr. 56

By Mathieu Lavant
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.

sevenbyfive.net website logo

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. (...)

theapplelounge.com Italian website logo

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. (...)

Rating by About This Particular Mac website

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.

macmagazine.com.br Brazilian site logo

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. (...)

virusphoto.com French website logo

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
(...)

Rating by the Alaskan Apple Users Group: Excellent

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.

mac360.com website logo

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. (...)