To my surprise it only applies hydrogens to a selected few residues. That sounds like a bug. It should add almost all hydrogens, with the few exceptions indicated in the -help output. Which version of phenix is this? -- In newer versions you can run
Hi Carsten, phenix.version to find out. The version information shown at the beginning of the phenix.reduce output would also be useful to know. Are you adding the hydrogens to protein or rna/dna?
If I would use another tool to generate the hydrogens, like CNS(X) or Maeastro, how compatible are the parameter files?
As of Sep this year phenix.refine should deal with any of the hydrogen naming conventions (old pdb, new pdb, refmac, cns). This is for standard protein and rna/dna. Ligands may require special attention, e.g. a special parameter file (use phenix.elbow). Ralf