ArcSoft Panorama Maker

Unfortunately this program has a serious flaw. In their eagerness to harvest spammable email addresses ArcSoft installs an extremely annoying popup window, which cannot be disabled. Even worse the sneaky method that was used to create this annoyance will trip about every virus protection program. For a program that you use maybe 2 times a year this is simply a price to high to pay. Now even after deleting the title, my mac is still haywire and the popup is still omni-present. Do not install this program even if it is free!

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Product reviewed: Arcsoft Panorama Maker 3.

One excellent, easy-to-use photo stitching software!

I enjoy to occasionally take series of photos for stiching, and Panorama Maker 3 is the perfect tool. It is simple, the layout of buttons and displays are logical, and overall, very easy-to-use. There are a few options for retouching, such as brightness/contrast/crop/rotate/straighten. Just err on the side of caution when applying them, because if any images to be stitched do not match up exactly, there will be ugly blank spaces at the top. You may also get "ghosting". The best answer is to edit all at once or not edit at all.

Whenever possible, USE A STURDY TRIPOD for shooting the source images. I know from personal experience that a tripod can make the difference between a quality end product or a scene with stitching marks/blank spaces. Also, be extremely careful with exposure/WB/camera angle, keep them consistent from shot-to-shot.

Panorama Maker could be the right choice for people who:

~Don't want to be fiddling or tweaking controls. - Literally just import photos & let the software do the rest.
~Are beginners/casuals/amateurs to the field of panorama stitching.
~Want a very simple, easy to use program. - But capable of producing stunning panos.
~Are on a tight budget. - Panorama Maker is inexpensive, or free in some cases.

Panorama Maker is not the right choice for people who:

~Want complete manual control over stitching.
~Need the best possible outputs.
~Want to add "hot-spots" to files. (Not possible with Panorama Maker 3).
~Want more options/functions for customizing. (Rather limited with Panorama Maker 3).
~Want to tweak & adjust to perfection before stitching, such as reducing distortions manually.

~FREE.
~Incredibly simple and easy-to-use.
~"Guided steps" carry the user through the stitching sequence.
~Plenty of features available for the beginner, casual, or amateur.
~You can specify your lens's focal length and intended output to get a better quality pano.
~Stitching various types of panoramas is possible. (360-degree, tile, single row, etc.).
~Ability to edit/retouch photos. - Before stitching.
~Ability to manually match stitching points.
~Easily export to several different file formats, two are TIFF & QuickTime.

~With 360-degree panoramas, you can only stitch one row of photos. - This means that you cannot shoot a row, tilt the camera up a bit, and shoot another row. I find that shooting vertically yields the best results, beacuse it allows the viewer more room to tilt up and down a bit.
~Inability to add "hot-spots".
~Limited manual control over stitching. (Basically, import-let-the-software-do-the-rest).
~Tendency to create blank spaces at the top of the finished file, due to poor stitching or alignment problems.
~"Ghosting" often occurs.
~If photos do not match up exactly, unpleasant stitches occur.
~Very hard to create a quality panorama indoors, there is massive distortion and mis-matching.
~No option for manually correcting distortions.

~Hugin Panorama Creator: More advanced & complicated to use.

~Other photo-related programs: Image-editing, photo-library, etc.

Haven't contacted Arcsoft or Panasonic with questions regarding this product.