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Monday, August 1, 2011

Panoman vs. Microsoft ICE

Last Saturday, I made several tests to try different photographic programs. They are to make panoramic photos from singles ones. The test consisted in 4 panoramic pictures which I took with my mobile phone. As it's written in the title, the softwares to test are:

Panoman: It's a program for symbian phones, so it only works in mobile phones. Panoman isn't freeware and it's quite difficult to get the full version. It's very good as for utility because it let you obtain a panoramic photo directly from the device. Unfortunately, the program is quite slow when you use it to make a panoramic from more than 3 photos.

Microsoft ICE: It's a program for Windows PCs. ICE is freeware. For it installation you have to install Microsoft C++ Libraries and Microsoft .NET Framework 4 if you don't have it installed, which is not difficult, but it's very very slow (I spent over 35 minutes to install it). The speed needed to process the photos isn't very outstanding because then you've already the photos taken.

Now, here are the test:

Test 1 (3 photos)
Panoman:
Microsoft ICE:

Test 2 (3 photos)
Panoman:
 Microsoft ICE:

Test 3 (4 photos)
Panoman:
 Microsoft ICE:

Test 4 (6 photos)
Panoman:
 Microsoft ICE:

Verdict

In the test 1 and 2, we can see that ICE makes a better union between the photos. In the test 3, there aren't much differences, so: In the last test, with 6 photos, it's too much for Panoman so, the result has been a disaster (and the program lets you take up to 12 photos...), however ICE has done a good job.

Generally, ICE merges better the photos than Panoman, and with a better quality, because Panoman didn't let me use my phone's software to take photos, because Panoman has one own, so I couldn't focus the photos therefore ICE's photos have a better quality.

I spent a lot of time to get Panoman and I'll keep it installed in my phone, but I think that I'll never use it again.

Winner

Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor) Download 

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