Installation Guide

Installation Types

PhotomatixCL can be installed in one of two ways:

  • Standalone: This is the usual way. You install PhotomatixCL on a single server, and then enter the license on that server.
  • License server: If you have multiple servers, and you want them all to use the same license, you can install the PhotomatixCL license server. You will do this on one server where you want the license details to be stored, and do a normal installation on the other servers.

    This is also useful if you are using a system such as AWS Lambda which doesn't allow you to install the license on individual servers.

Installing on Windows

Loading the software

Download the PhotomatixCL installer from the download page.

Case 1: Installing PhotomatixCL standalone (i.e. on a single server):

Run the installer and follow the prompts, leaving the "Install the PhotomatixCL license manager" box unticked when you get to that step. Then, proceed to Setting the license key.

Case 2: Installing PhotomatixCL license server (i.e. you have multiple servers and want to share the license between them):

  • Choose one of the servers which you want to be the license server. This one will store the license details.
  • On this server, run the installer, and tick the "Install the PhotomatixCL license manager" box when it comes up.
  • On each other server, run the installer and leave this box unticked.
  • On every server, including the license server (if you will be running PhotomatixCL on it), add an environment variable for the user who will be running PhotomatixCL. The name of the variable should be PHOTOMATIXCL_LICSERVER, and its value should be the host name or IP address of your license server.
  • If you have a firewall between your license server and the other servers, make sure they can connect to the license server on TCP port 46876.

Setting the license key

If you have a subscription license, ensure your server has Internet access when you set the license key. It will also need Internet access when it checks the license the first time PhotomatixCL is run and then once a month. (Specifically, it will need to connect to hdrsoft.com on port 80.)

Open a command window, and type this command (including the quotes), replacing LicenseKey with the license key you were sent when you ordered PhotomatixCL:

"C:\Program Files\PhotomatixCL\PhotomatixCL" -ll LicenseKey

If you set up a license server, you can run this command on that server, or any other server, if the PHOTOMATIXCL_LICSERVER environment variable is set correctly.

If you chose to install PhotomatixCL in a non-standard location, replace the path above with where you installed it.

You are now ready to start using PhotomatixCL.

Installing on Linux

Choosing a build

Different Linux distributions vary significantly in the libraries and packages they have available, so there are a number of builds of PhotomatixCL, designed to run on some popular distributions:

  • Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04
  • Universal (statically linked version)

The statically linked build should work on a wide range of distributions, but doesn't include lens correction.

This is the preferred build to use if your workflow doesn't require lens correction done in PhotomatixCL (for example, because you're doing lens correction already in some other part of your processing, or you're using JPEGs rather than RAWs).

Installing the software

Download one of the PhotomatixCL builds from the download page.

Once you have downloaded a build, go to the directory where you want PhotomatixCL to be installed, and run this command:

tar xf FolderDownloadedFile/PhotomatixCL-7.0.1-U20.tar.gz

Where FolderDownloadedFile is the path to the folder where you downloaded PhotomatixCL.

Case 1: Installing PhotomatixCL standalone (i.e. on a single server):

Proceed to Setting the license key.

Case 2: Installing PhotomatixCL license server (i.e. you have multiple servers and want to share the license between them):

  • Choose one of the servers which you want to be the license server. This one will store the license details.
  • On that server, run this command to start the license server:

    PhotomatixCL -lm

    You may wish to make a service to start this at boot time. See below for an example service file for distributions running systemd (most modern systems do).

  • On every server except the license server, add an environment variable for the user who will be running PhotomatixCL. The name of the variable should be PHOTOMATIXCL_LICSERVER, and its value should be the host name or IP address of your license server.
  • If you have a firewall between your license server and the other servers, make sure they can connect to the license server on TCP port 46876.

Sample service configuration file

[Unit]
Description=PhotomatixCL license server
After=network.target
StartLimitIntervalSec=0

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
RestartSec=1
User=username
ExecStart=/path/to/PhotomatixCL -lm

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Replace username with the user who should run the license server, and /path/to/PhotomatixCL with the full path to PhotomatixCL. You can place this file in your /etc/systemd/system directory, calling it photomatixcl.service.

Setting the license key

If you have a subscription license, ensure your server has Internet access when you set the license key. It will also need Internet access when it checks the license the first time PhotomatixCL is run and then once a month. (Specifically, it will need to connect to hdrsoft.com on port 80.)

Open a terminal window, and type this command, where /path/to/PhotomatixCL is the full path to PhotomatixCL, and LicenseKey is the license key you were sent when you ordered PhotomatixCL:

/path/to/PhotomatixCL -ll LicenseKey

If you are running a license server, you will need to run this command as the same user that the license server is running as, or set the PHOTOMATIXCL_LICSERVER environment variable on the license server as well.

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