There are quite a few programs that allow you to create panoramas on the iPhone. I've reviewed some of them, and they all get pretty good reviews. The differences are often in how much work you have to do versus letting the software do the alignments of the various images. Since iPhone photos are almost always hand held, there are going to be issues of the camera not always being level.

AutoStitch [App Store] is a US$1.99 app that gets most of the process just right. When you run it, it asks you to import images from your camera roll, as many as you like. They can be horizontal for a wide panorama, or stacked vertically. As an experiment I shot both vertically and horizontally, and rocked the camera significantly out of level by tilting it up to about 45 degrees. I took 10 images, and the software assembled the images in the proper order. There were a couple of gaps, where there was no image, but that was my fault, not the application's. The result was pretty impressive: not as a great image, but that AutoStitch could make sense out of the jumble of shots. You can see this image in the gallery I've created.

No panorama software I've seen is perfect. When I look closely at the full resolution images I see a bit of ghosting in the distant mountains, but overall AutoStitch is an excellent program that lets you take the pictures while it does the work. All panoramas need some cropping cleanup, and iPhoto can do this when you import from the camera. If you want to do all the post-processing on the iPhone itself, I suggest Photogene, [App Store] which will straighten and crop your photos, plus lots of other functions if you want them. It's a great US$2.99 investment. I'll be reviewing this app in a future post.

Here are some sample panos taken assembled with AutoStitcher. I've reduced the size of these images so they will load faster. You can find more on the developer's web site.

Image Examples:

Yesterday I put three panorama programs to the test. Today, I added a 4th program, appropriately enough called Panorama [app store link]. It's US$9.99 and the most expensive of the apps on offer. After using the new app today, and going back and taking another fresh crack at the other three, I'll share the results, and some sample images from each one. I didn't always shoot at the same location, because that would have been boring, but shot them all under the same sky conditions and lighting. In each case, I took two images and then merged them in the software. All the software allows the merging of more than 2 images, but I wanted to keep the file size down.

Using Pano [app store link] I got better matched skies today, and sharper alignment. The blend between the two images was good, and once you do a rough align, Pano takes care of the rest. At US$2.99 it is the bargain of the offerings.

TripStitch [app store link] gave me an acceptable image, but it was a lot of trouble because you can't take the image from within TripStitch. You have to go out to the iPhone camera app, then import the images into TripStitch, which I feel is an unnecessary step. I also didn't see any auto-alignment feature, so it's all up to the photographer. TripStitch is US$4.99.

Panolabs Pro [app store link] gave me a lot of control, but an image that I felt was below the quality of the others. I tried on several scenes, but manipulating the images for a smooth merge is difficult, and the controls are not fine grained enough to make delicate adjustments. I've shared my best effort with you in the gallery. The app is US$4.99.

Panorama did a nice job as well. It was pretty easy to merge and align the images, and the final result looks pretty good. It was the most expensive app of the group, but it was not head and shoulders above Pano or TripStitch. It allows a lot of control and lets you select the final resolution for saving. It does a nice job of guiding you through the process of taking and aligning the images.

So there you have it. A look at the options for making panoramic shots from the iPhone. Of course, you can get better results using a higher resolution digital camera, and something like Adobe Photoshop or Elements or 3rd party apps like DoubleTake or The Panorama Factory to stitch them all together. It is remarkable, though, that you can get decent pano photos from what is arguably a less than top-quality cellphone camera.

Click on the gallery below to see the images produced by the apps.

No one thinks the iPhone has a terrific, pro-level camera, but it is fine for quick snaps. One way to get an even better picture is to make a panorama, stitching multiple images together to give you a wider view, or a taller view, and more pixels.

I've tried three of the apps designed to do panoramas and they all come up pretty short.

The first I tried was Pano [app store link]. It's US$2.99. This app does the best job of guiding you through the process, telling you to take the leftmost view, then another, and then if you want another image it cues you for that. You get a choice of accepting the photo, or taking a fresh one. When you are done, Pano merges the photo and you have a panorama ready to save to your phone or export to iPhoto. Some of the pictures look OK, but I noticed when I was shooting outdoors the three panels did not match very well in tone or color. There were big differences, especially in the sky. It looked a bit like the old Cinerama movies where the three cameras didn't quite match up. When shooting inside, I found the images more consistent. Steve Sande reviewed this app for TUAW back in October.

While we whipped out our own photo galleries feature last week for Macworld 07, Panoramas.dk specializes in putting together QuickTime VRs of major events and places. TUAW reader Christian Chladek just tipped us off to Panoramas.dk's new Macworld 07 gallery, containing over 15 full-screen VRs of various booths from the likes of Canon, Microsoft, Crumpler (their booth really was pretty unique) and - of course - the iPhone in its awe-inspiring rotating glass case. The VRs look pretty nice and are one more way to 'be there' without being there. We just wouldn't recommend trying to lick the iPhone display.