Perfect, painless panoramic paper prints from your smartphone

Flexing your panorama s-t-r-e-t-c-h is one of the best photographic features found on many of today’s smartphones. In a simple sweep of the camera, huge picturesque vistas can be captured that make any user look like a landscape picture-making pro.

[Please note: Here are a couple of helpful panorama-making tips for iOS and Samsung.]

Other than digital file transfer or a social media posting, however, there’s very little way to demonstrate your panorama prowess to unconnected or phone-less family, friends, and fans. That is, unless you have a mini thermal printer stashed in your camera bag.

Marketed under a variety of different names (e.g., Funducts, KASCLINO, LabelMore, Zeacool, etc.), these cheap, plastic, cheesy Chinese printers share a direct heritage to the thermal cash register receipt maker at your local coffee/pizza shop (or, actually, any point-of-sale cashier checkout system). Using a similar thermal paper printing system, these printers typically connect to your smartphone via a Bluetooth® connection.

This printer will work for printing panoramas: KASCLINO Mini Portable Bluetooth Thermal Printer $12

And, load up on replacement rolls of paper: KASCLINO Thermal Paper for Mini Thermal Printer, 5 Rolls Wireless Pocket Label Printer Paper Receipt Printer Paper, for Printing Mobile Phone Pictures/Photos/Receipts/Notes/Lists/Label/Memo/QR Codes $6

Following a Bluetooth connection, it’s a simple process to import your panorama, prepare it for printing, and create a slightly pixellated monochrome rendition of your scene. By virtue of these printers sharing some DNA with a cash register receipt making system, the resulting print can be expanded to the complete length of your panorama.

Seven-inch+ long panoramic paper prints, here we come.

In order to go from a fantastic panoramic shot to a perfect paper print, you will need to download an app named, Fun Print, from the App Store or Google Play. Once this app has been downloaded to your smartphone, there are a couple of “gotchas” that you will want to avoid:

1. Don’t sign in. Yes, you read that right. The Fun Print app is gonna try to make you sign-in with your smartphone ID. At the time of writing this article, this step isn’t necessary. Instead, just click the plain, generic “Sign In” button. No personal information will be required and you will be admitted to the app’s user interface.

[Please note: if the developer of Fun Print removes this free gateway, there are other thermal printing apps that might work as substitutes.]

2. In order to ensure that your wide-angle scene is printed in an appropriately elongated horizontal format, click the “vertical” button on the print preview options page. Yup, “vertical” makes horizontal prints.

[Please note: When in doubt about the proper print orientation, look for the simulated sawtooth paper tear edge on the print preview image. If it looks correct, press the “Print” button for making a printout.]

Finally, yes, your resulting print will be monochrome…duh. It will also be slightly pixellated. These two attributes are endearing qualities that help to render a routine panorama into a collectable keepsake.

Be prepared, however, you might want to stock up on replacement thermal paper rolls. Why? Because everyone on your tour bus is going to want a paper print of your majestic Grand Canyon view.

Enjoy.

---