A method and an apparatus for creating a stereo image adaptively according to the characteristic of an input image and a method and an apparatus for reproducing the created stereo image are provided. The method for creating a stereo image includes selecting one of a left view image and a right view image that constitute the stereo image and measuring the directivity of high frequency components of the selected image, and synthesizing the left view image and the right view image into a stereo image in a format depending on the measured directivity.