topic Re: Re: Re: Camera Auto-Processing in Galaxy S23

S23 ultra camera over exposed

Ash45 — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 18:04:29 GMT

Notice top three window panes on the right side. There are bricks on the wall but in the picture it's totally blown up.

Is anyone facing camera oversaturation issue with s23 ultra ?

Why are RAW and hi res images quality so bad compared to the compressed JPEG?

spagoot — Sat, 18 Feb 2023 00:51:53 GMT

So I'm really confused here because this is the entire point of me saving money for the past 3 years and if I can't figure this out, I think I'm going to give up and just return this to get something cheap to hold me over for a couple more years.

The 200mp and RAW images are substantially lower quality and resolution than the compressed JPEGs.

Additionally, the RAW images get really blown out post processing.

Why is this?

How do I stop this post processing effect?

Does anyone have a camera app they can suggest to replace the stock one?

I'm using both the stock and the expert raw apps to test, taking photos in a bunch of different settings and conditions.

The stock app makes much better pictures than the expert raw one, both in pro and auto modes.

All photos taken in 1x zoom.

The phone as a whole is kind of a usability nightmare, but I'd make so many amends for a good camera. For this to struggle so hard is actually pretty saddening.

Re: Why are RAW and hi res images quality so bad compared to the compressed JP..

spagoot — Sat, 18 Feb 2023 00:52:14 GMT

Note this is for the 512gb S23U

Re: Why are RAW and hi res images quality so bad compared to the compressed JP..

TheGalaxy — Sat, 18 Feb 2023 02:17:29 GMT

Because they are not processed, hence the name, raw

Re: Why are RAW and hi res images quality so bad compared to the compressed JP..

JesseB0137 — Sat, 18 Feb 2023 05:22:55 GMT

I noticed this too, even comparing to the s22+, the s23u has worse low light photos AND auto focus in dark environments don't work on the s23u for me

Re: Why are RAW and hi res images quality so bad compared to the compressed JP..

betancd — Sat, 18 Feb 2023 20:48:46 GMT

RAW files contain loads of information you usually can't see in the preview alone, to unlock the power of RAW you will need an editing app like Light room to edit those files and bring out details. JPEGs files are edited by the phone immediately after taking the photo but the original information is lost and all you are left with is the edited/compressed file. A RAW file is like a negative from film, you have to edit those as well when you develop them to get the look you want.

Re: Why are RAW and hi res images quality so bad compared to the compressed JP..

spagoot — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 04:08:25 GMT

This problem persists when viewing images on a 32" 4k screen

Furthermore, if you jump to image preview before postprocessing (??) is complete on the *raw* images, the images look worse after whatever's going on is complete. The previews look so much more crisp at every zoom level.

Re: Why are RAW and hi res images quality so bad compared to the compressed JP..

spagoot — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 04:11:29 GMT

I'm aware of what raw and jpeg are - I've been doing photography for maybe a decade now, mostly digital.

That's why this baffles me - this isn't what the experience is supposed to be.

The RAW typically looks darker compared to a fully automatic photograph, which makes sense

But my concern isn't vividness - it's that the raw images are blurrier/more pixelated and are harder to bring to color/brightness parity with the compressed/postprocessed jpeg.

It's hard to make a raw image look as pretty if you don't know what you're doing, but the raw image inherently should be more detail rich to allow that. That's what's missing/wrong here.

Re: S23 ultra camera over exposed

UnicornCassie — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 18:13:12 GMT

Mine seems fine. I'm still plating around with it cause I just got it a few days ago but so far all seems great. I just play with the settings to fix any issues. Is it a settings issue or it's just like that?

Re: S23 ultra camera over exposed

xironmanx84 — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 19:23:39 GMT

When you're about to take the picture, try tapping on the bright part of the picture to focus on it and then take the picture. I just tried it on my S23 ultra shooting the inside of my sliding glass doors with the blinds closed and sun shining on them. It dimmed the picture slightly but gave the blinds a little more detail and not as washed out from the bright sun.

Re: Re: S23 ultra camera over exposed

Ash45 — Sun, 05 Mar 2023 17:31:02 GMT

It's just like that, pictures come out over exposed all the time. My 2020 OP 8 pro handles it better than the s23 ultra.

Re: Re: S23 ultra camera over exposed

Ash45 — Sun, 05 Mar 2023 17:32:02 GMT

Yeah you're right, but still it's not as good. Also it should be by default.

Camera Auto-Processing

coley05 — Sun, 12 Mar 2023 14:50:17 GMT

I recently got the Galaxy S23 (not ultra or plus). When I take a picture it looks good but when I go to view it, I see that it automatically gets edited and no longer looks like the original version. Sometimes I'll catch it while it's doing this and the edited version looks worse. After it's processed it looks way too sharp. It emphasizes every little wrinkle, shadows under eyes, or even a flake of dry skin. What can I do to have the original version I saw in my preview without the extra processing?

I have turned off HDR and scene optimizer but this doesn't help to keep it looking like the preview I see when taking the picture. I just want it to look like it does before the system edits the picture. I returned the S22 due to this. I was hoping the S23 would be better, but now I'm debating returning and going back to an iPhone after being a Galaxy user for 8 years.

I don't want to use pro or raw mode because I don't want to have to edit photos or take time to adjust settings while taking pictures.

Re: Camera Auto-Processing

userZNnTdcqwZP — Sun, 12 Mar 2023 15:15:13 GMT

If you want to further adjust camera settings (such as HDR and picture softening), you can download Camera Assistant from Galaxy Store.

Plus, in pro mode, you can also use it as auto mode.

Re: Why are RAW and hi res images quality so bad compared to the compressed JP..

userBHlE0IoHMK — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 04:33:11 GMT

You are right. I don't think most people really look closely enough at these raw images but they simply are down sampled previews with lower resolution than the JPEG or HEIF saved at the same time. They are more pixelated if you compare the JPEG captured at the same time. If you import them into Lightroom and do some basic editing to match the brightness and color you will realize they are far more sharper in Lightroom than they appear in default Gallery app.

So it seems Samsung hasn't enabled any builtin app to support decoding the real DNG raw files. They just let you see the embedded JPEG previews. So does the expert RAW app. I am not sure if Samsung intended this or it's a bug. But this is really misleading and 99% of people wouldn't realize they need a 3rd party professional app to see the raw properly and they would simply assume they have a better quality raw copy but what they really get is a worse quality preview

Re: Why are RAW and hi res images quality so bad compared to the compressed JP..

spagoot — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 05:13:22 GMT

I mean my problem is that it still looks terrible with limited ability to zoom in even when exporting it to other apps.

I'll have to look deeper on my desktop when i have a chance, but that's a bummer that it's basically creating digital paperweights on the phone

Re: Re: Why are RAW and hi res images quality so bad compared to the compresse..

userBHlE0IoHMK — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 05:56:00 GMT

It has to be some "proper" app that knows how to handle DNG files. Lightroom will do the job I am sure. After viewing and adjusting in Lightroom I can say the clarity of the raw finally matches that of the same JPEG, and of course at the same time allow you to adjust sharpening and smearing as you will

Re: Camera Auto-Processing

Biggus — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 03:32:42 GMT

3rd party camera programs like OpenCamera allow you to turn off the sharpening and noise reduction and are your best bet. All that stuff is being done to cover up the fact that 108MP (or 200+MP) tiny sensors are a terrible idea and produce awful images in most lighting. The oversharpening exists to try to cover up detail lost from the huge amounts of noise reduction that needs to be done even on the stacked images the camera does by default without camera assistant's faster shutter option.

Binning 9 or 16 photo sites together doesn't improve anything if each is so small that in most indoor lighting 75% of the sites didn't capture enough photons to go over the noise floor and produce some kind of meaningful data. This is further exaggerated by the fact that most people light their homes with horridly yellow / orange 2700k or 3000k bulbs (despite the packaging a 3000k bulb isn't any kind of daylight, warm or otherwise). You don't notice because your eyes adapt and treat it as white. I do because I trained myself to not adapt over decades of photography so I'd be able to judge color properly. That affects cameras badly since everything on the market uses a color filter array with a 2 green / 1 blue / 1 red arrangement which means 3/4 of the sensors are receiving severely reduced levels of light (which makes them produce nothing but readout or amplification noise) in the first place

I don't generally get terrible oversharpening, but other artifacts are rampant. Even in bright daylight a quick zoom on tree leaves reveals where the heavy noise reduction turned leaves info somthing that looks like a watercolor filter was applied, so I never really use this phone outdoors like I did sometimes with the Note8. I still have to make the choice between:
1) Fast shutter reaction thanks to camera settings program, which also disables stacking which increases noise and makes images very undersaturated, but makes the camera take the picture when your hit the button and not up to a second later. I usually use this now, I never use my phone camera for anything but pictures of cats being silly or friends and I'd rather have almost B&W noisy images than a blur of something that happened after I took the picture
2) The pro raw camera, which produces incredibly blurry stacked images and hilariously noisy (I'm talking the worst low light sensor ever, Sigma SD9 / 1st Gen Foveon full color at its top ISO of 400 where large areas of the image were blotches of color due to the physics of the sensors) and unusable. Outdoors having 12 or 14 bit raw (Samsung claims 16 but since professional 35mm full frame doesn't pretend to produce more than 14 I'm calling BS. I'm sure they might be outputting 16 bit numbers and equally sure the 4 least significant bits are background noise in the best conditions).
3) Decide I might actually want to do something with the photos or am going outside and take a real camera.

Pro raw camera still outputs stacked raws so it doesn't completely solve this.

The sharpening tool in the photo editor is complete trash; anything higher than 8-9 out of 100 massively overprocesses everything.

I'm guessing to get the 200+ MP sensor looking good enough non-magnified to wow people at the store, they had to tack that oversharpening on to make he appearance of undoing the necessary noise reduction even at base ISO which is likely smearing colors across edges of objects (something harder to notice when there's an overly hard edge in the luminance data).

The worst part is that none of the sensor resolution increases had anything to do with quality increase; even for professional photography with *good* cameras those resolutions are rarely needed; it's all about presenting ever increasing specs to keep the appearance that there's any real reason to upgrade. Processors have barely improved, RAM has remained nearly identical, storage capability has stopped since microsd was removed, etc.

Re: Camera Auto-Processing

Biggus — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 14:51:23 GMT

You may have gotten your wish. The new version of Samsung camera assistant has an "image softening" setting that works in photo mode, but I'd be willing to bet it really just turns off the sharpening or turns it down.

Re: Re: Camera Auto-Processing

Biggus — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 15:24:33 GMT

That does appear to be what it does. A picture taken with softening on high has about what I'd expect for sharpness given optical limits and no edge artifacts. Medium is a decent balance with artifacts gone but still slightly sharpened. Off, the default, produces stairstepping artifacts along high contrast edges and makes certain detail disappear (take a photo of text in a book from a few feet away, the text wouldn't be readable but with default sharpening parts of letters disappear.