Photographers take many millions of pictures each year. When they are developed or downloaded to a computer they very rarely convey the true visual feeling of the photographer at the time they were taken. The problem is the camera lens is not capable of taking in the wide expanse that the eye can see.

It is of course possible to photograph sweeping vistas with a dedicated panoramic camera, but this can be rather expensive, apart from the additional weight to carry around. You could use an APS camera, but all that happens is the developing laboratory crop a bit off the top and a piece off the bottom of the original image giving you a cropped envelope shape, but losing part of the image.

Using a computer to manually stitch a number of images together in Photoshop is only part of the answer. In fact it can be quite a daunting task. The alternative is to use a dedicated panorama program.

While not absolutely essential to take images for your panorama, it is best to use a tripod with a spirit level, also a good wide-angle lens. If you can hold a camera steady and not move your feet, swinging around a 180 degrees, you can get a reasonable panorama of three or four landscape or five or six portrait images.

When shooting a panorama outside, it will help if there is very little wind to move the clouds. Better still if there are few if any clouds at all to move.

When using either a film or digital SLR, use the manual setting so that all the images you take are at the same setting. With a compact digital camera use manual, or the exposure and focus lock. That is if your camera has this facility, this will save a lot of work later in your imaging program making adjustments. Taking pictures in portrait mode means more exposures, but the image will look better as it will be approximately 30% larger vertically. Try to give a 1/3 overlap to each image.

While it is quite possible to stitch your panorama in Photoshop I feel it is better to use a dedicated programme. There are a number of these available, some which are bundled with hardware; others are included with imaging programmes such as Photoshop Elements and Corel Photo Paint. Still more are available as downloads from the Web as stand alone programmes. Six of the best and easiest to use I have reviewed In this article.

Elements. Photo Merge

Go to Edit> Photomerge.
This will bring up a small Screen telling you to click Browse and navigate to the file and images, which you wish to merge into a panorama.

Highlight the images and click Open. The images will then be transferred to the Photomerge Pallet. On the right hand side of the screen are the controls; Perspective and Blending along with a preview button. You then press OK and the images are automatically merged. It may pay you to use small files for each image with Photomerge. Even though I have 1Gig of RAM on the computer I was using, I found I could soon run out of memory.

Requirements.
Adobe Photoshop Elements. Pentium II. Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP 128MB RAM, 150MB Hard disc. Mac Power PC. OS 9.1, 9.2 or Mac OS X v.10.1.3-10.1.5

PanaVue Image Assembler
This is a standalone programme that will stitch an inline panorama, stitch several small portions of an image into a large one or do a 360-degree wraparound. The install places a shortcut to the programme on the desktop. Click on the shortcut and a rather bland interface appears. Go to File>New and a small colourful drop down screen emerges. This gives you all the programmes alternatives. Check Photo Stitching, press OK and you are asked whether you wish to stitch in a row or columns. Check row and then check Images and Add Images. As you load the images from the file you are prompted to number each one from left to right. This I found most helpful, as I can soon get a little confused if loading more than three or four pictures. Clicking on the Image tab gives you the option of Automatic or Manual stitch. As with all the software I have reviewed here, where available, I chose automatic. You can also choose the amount of blending between shots, colour adjustment and Anti-Aliasing. I left them all at default. To make the panorama press the Stitch button and wait for it to do its thing.

Requirements
Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP. Pentium 160 MHz. 64 MB RAM. 10MB Hard Disc Obtainable as a download from http://www.panavue.com cost $64 with disc $69

3D Vista Studio 2
This programme invites you to choose from four different modes of stitching images, including Standard inline, Fisheye, One shot and Cubic. Clicking on Standard brings up a palette asking you to Select Source images. When selected they appear on a strip at the top of the screen. On the right is a Toolbar with pop up descriptions of each tool. At the bottom of the toolbar is one marked stitch, when pressed this starts the automatic stitching process. A small screen then lets you know at what stage the processing is at. If satisfied press the save button.

Download from http://www.panotek.com cost $199.95

Requirements Pentium II Windows 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000 and ME

Stitcher 3.5
Comes with a 90-page comprehensive user guide. Stitcher can create panoramas and render as a cube, plane, cylinder or sphere.

Stitcher displays your selected images in an image strip from where you drag and drop into a window where you manually stitch them together one by one. The programme automatically calibrates the focal length of the camera lens and any distortion that is found. Stitcher gives the user more manual control over the workflow than virtually any other programme. These range from setting the image cache size in memory to setting the camera orientation and Undo Buffer. Support is given to ten different file types including * tiff and *jpeg.

Purchase via website http://www.realviz.com cost $499+19.6% VAT in Europe

Requirements
Windows 98, ME, 2000, NT or XP. Mac OS9.1 or OS X v 10.1. Intel Pentium II 350 MHz or Power PC G3 MHz. 128 MB RAM. 15 MB Disc space.

U Lead Cool 360"
This program's modern interface with a large preview area invites you to click buttons on the right of the screen to start New, Open or Save Projects, Acquire or Select Files. In the bottom right is a settings button. When pressed a palette appears which asks you to choose which camera and lens were used to take your panorama. If neither is on the list there is customising facility

Clicking on the Preferences Tab enables you to change the number of undoes or rotation of the panorama. You can also turn off or on tool tips and sounds. The Stitch tab enables you to switch on or off Warping, Blending and Automatic Alignment. This is a very easy program to use, with Wizards from beginning to end. Many of the controls can be used manually or automatic. You get the best of both worlds.

Download from http:/www/ulead.com Cost $39.95.

Requirements
Windows 98 or later. Pentium II. 32MB RAM. 20MB Hard Disc

Panorama Factory V3
This programme stitches a Spherical or Cylindrical Panorama.

The clearest interface of any of the programmes reviewed here. You can either manually or automatically stitch a panorama. In manual mode you either use the wizard or pick which enhancement or tool to use. The wizard has six different screens to take you through the process of making your panorama. A progress bar keeps you informed as to what stage has been reached.

Wizard
1. Imports the images. There are tools to rotate or reverse the individual shots after acquiring them.

2. Here you are asked to describe what type of camera was used for taking the images and the focal length of the lens. It will even correct barrel distortion and the brightness levels of each of the imported images.

3. Controls the image quality. Including reduced ghosting and improved matching of images

4. Select panorama type. Partial or 360 degree. Spherical or Cylindrical.

5. Create the panorama. The wizard asks you if you want to print and what dimensions to use. Or if you want to display on a website. You then press Next and are advised to be patient as the processing may take a while.

Download from. http://www.panoramafactory.com. Cost$59.95

Requirements
Windows 95, 98,Me, 2000, XP. Pentium II 500 MHz. 64 MB RAM. 20MB Hard Disc

Generally speaking as photographers we would only be interested in horizontal (planar) panoramas. Some of the software reviewed may seem rather expensive but often these have other applications included in the software.

All the programmes reviewed here work quite well, some a little better than others. If I were pushed to choose then I would go for Panorama Factory V3, closely followed by PanaVue Image Assembler.

If I were a professional photographer doing a lot of commercial work that could justify the cost I would go for Realviz Stitcher 3.5, mainly because of its greater manual controls and scope of the program. This company has a further small stitching programme called EZ Stitcher. Aimed at the domestic market it is virtually automatic with little or no controls for the enthusiast.

If any of these software programmes interest you, I would strongly advise that you first download a demo before purchase. You can then see if the programme really fills your requirements and is compatible with your system.