On the heels of my recent Hydra review, Creaceed released version 2.1 that includes several improvements including a dual histogram display, faster rendering of RAW images, and Aperture now supports 16 bit TIFF images. There is a complete listing at Creaceed.
Continue readingIt wasn’t so long ago that I reviewed Creaceed’s High Dynamic Range (HDR) application and Aperture plugin, Hydra. If you’ve never heard of HDR before, it is the process of taking multiple exposures of a subject and combining them into one picture that more closely resembles what you see with the human eye. When done right, it is wonderful. When overdone, it looks bizarre. Wikipedia explains it at length.
I was impressed with Hydra when I last reviewed it but recomended using the stand-alone application over the Aperture plug-in. At that time, the Aperture plug-in hadn’t caught up with the stand alone application feature set. With version 2, it does now.
The new Aperture interface is fantastic. If you can run iPhoto, you should have no trouble with Hydra. It has a live preview, sliders, and checkboxes which, with a little experimentation, can have you tuning your HDR photographs in no time without cracking the manual.
Hydra still does an excellent job of combining photographs and image matching. Creaceed has a lot of experience in this field from its other product, MorphAge, and it shows. Indeed the new version uses additional technologies to account for small distortions between your images. On or off the tripod, you can perform HDR using Hydra.
The new version also includes a loupe tool that previews your image at full quality allowing you to see the rendered image eliminating nasty surprises.
Tone mapping has also improved in the new version. Tone mapping is the part of the HDR workflow where the application takes all of the combined HDR data and makes it into a visually attractive picture. It makes the skies richly blue and the grass richly green. The new version includes a perceptive tone mapper which attempts to mimic human perception. I’m sure there is a lot of science behind this. I just think it makes the pictures look better.
More than anything, version 2 shows the maturity of an application on its second iteration. Slightly more polish, features, and more intuitive.
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.
I am an amateur photographer. I’ve never sold an image to Life Magazine yet I get an unreasonable amount of pleasure from taking good pictures. 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 is a Leopard only application and a license costs $79.95. You can download a trial from the developer at www.creaceed.com.
You can listen to this review on the MacReviewCast episode 201.
Hot on the heals of my Hydra review, I went to The Great Park with my family this evening and got some great shots of and from a huge orange balloon. Because the balloon was always motion I wasn’t able to effectively use bracketed shots. Instead I took one image shot in RAW and made two copies of it. I then set the exposure rates high and low and sent them into Hydra. Take a look at the results and let me know what you think.
The latest rage with digital photography is high dynamic range imaging. The problem faced by anyone holding a camera is that the dynamic range of their camera sensor is a fraction of that available to the human eye. Put simply, that gorgeous sunset and dark foreground you’re looking at simply cannot be captured with a single exposure from your camera.
This is where your Mac comes to the rescue with high dynamic range imaging, often referred to as HDR. Using HDR, you can take three shots of the same thing, one that is over exposed, one that is underexposed, and one that is just right. If you are really tricky and there is enough data in your image files, you can even make three copies of a single shot with different exposure levels. HDR software can then take these three images and combine them on your computer. This allows you to combine a gorgeous sunset with a foreground image. The results of this process vary from spectacular too surreal.
This week I’m taking a look at a software application designed specifically for the Mac to make HDR photography available to the masses. I’m talking about Hydra 1.6 from Creaceed Software.
Hydra is unique in that the $60 license gives you both a standalone application and an Aperture plug-in. Interestingly, the two iterations of this application are not identical. While I generally prefer to use the Aperture plug-in for its ease of use, there are a few additional tools in the stand-alone version of Hydra that I really like. Fortunately, the developer informs me that with the next major release of Hydra, the stand-alone tools will catch up with the Aperture plug-in.
One of the first steps of HDR image processing is to make sure the three pictures are aligned. In this regard, the Hydra developers did a very good job. The software or the user can pick specific alignment points and get everything straight. While generally you’re supposed to take HDR bracketed shots on a tripod, this feature allows Hyrda users to process images without assistance of a tripod. The software aligns the images for you. This could be quite handy when sun begins to rise and you realize you left the tripod in your car. My tests with this feature showed that it did actually worked and, generally, the automatic alignment did much better than my manual attempts.
Regardless, once your images are aligned, Hydra combines them into one image with all of the dynamic range data. This is where the fun really begins. The Hydra standalone application has a convenient histogram that allows you to blend the influence of your various images. While it’s not that easy to describe, it is very intuitive when you start doing it. The histogram is not in the Aperture plug-in yet but this is one of the tools the developer assures me will be in the next major update around the new year. Once your images are tweaked just right, you can export it to 8-Bit TIFF, JPEG, or 32-bit OpenEXR.
While the Aperture plug-in does not have the convenient histogram yet, it does have a variety of sliders and checkboxes to customize your HDR image. Because it is part of the plug-in architecture, all of this is done from within Aperture making the process of exporting images out for HDR and then dropping the finished product package back into your library quick and painless.
Creating an HDR images is much more an art than a science. Every picture is different and the tone map balance is never the same. For this reason, the real-time preview is a blessing. Also, like so many up-and-coming image applications on the Mac, Hydra takes advantage of your graphics card. The wait time to combine three RAW images on my MacBook Pro into an HDR image with Hydra’s Aperture plug-in was less than one minute. Obviously, your mileage may vary.
One problem I had was that Hydra stripped some of my metadata from its finished image. My lens information was gone and Hydra appended its name to my camera type. I understand the exposure information is probably no longer relevant but the lens information is very helpful and should remain. Again, the developers are already aware of this and a fix is in the works.
I think some comparison with the other popular HDR applicaiton, Photmatix, is appropriate. I own a license for Photomatix and have used it for some time. At $99, a Photomatix Pro license costs $40 more than Hydra. Having used them both I would say that Photomatix has Hydra beat with respect to the number of controls and adjustments. You can get very specific with the modifications to your image in Photomatix. With respect to the final product however, I couldn’t really tell much of a difference. This may be more a function of my lack of skill with Photomatix’s multiple controls but it also makes a point. If you are not looking for the most complex program but still want to make nice HDR images, Hydra may be in your sweet spot. Another point in Hydra’s favor is that it was created by a Mac developer and looks like it. It has a nice interface and doesn’t feel clunky like so many multiplatform applications. Fortunately, both Hydra and Photomatix have trial versions so you can give both a try and see which works best for you.
Hydra requires MacOS X running leopard 10.5.4 or later. While the developer says it can run on a Power Mac, they “highly recommend” you run it on an Intel Mac. Head over to their website and give it a try.
You can listen to this review on the MacReviewCast episode 172.