I just got the Samsung Galaxy 9 Note and am a bit disappointed with my photos. Is there a simple way to enhance them so that they look better?
Having had a chance to work with the Samsung Galaxy Note9 I was quite impressed by the camera, and am surprised to hear that you’re not impressed. My experience was that it did a fantastic job with just about every photographic situation I gave it. Still, there are few photos that are perfect right out of the proverbial box. The Gallery photo viewer in the Samsung Android universe has some pretty slick preset photo edit tools that can do a great job of fixing up pictures.
There are also a bewildering number of photo editing options if you want to get a third party app to help with your photos, ranging from free apps to expensive pro-level programs like Photoshop. For most users, however, you won’t really need to go beyond the 20 or so preset photo filters that are included in the Gallery app on your new Note9.
Let’s have a look by starting with an already pretty nice photo of one of our cats from the Galaxy Note9:
You can see that the height x width dimensions of the camera don’t match the dimensions of the screen, which is a little bit disconcerting, but remember that the camera is taking super high resolution photos so you can easily zoom in and crop to match the unusual 18.5:9 screen ratio of the Note9 itself.
But let’s not worry about that for now. Instead, just tap on the screen to bring up all the toolbars:
The top controls let you go to a multi-photo gallery view (the “<” on the top left), then, on the right, the eyeball gets you to Bixby Vision (a sort of smart photo analysis system for identifying products, locations, etc, unique to Samsung devices), an easy way to favorite an image (the heart) and a menu of advanced options including the ability to set the image as your wallpaper and even print it with a compatible printer.
Along the bottom are rotation and cropping tools, preset image adjustment filters (we’ll get back to them), stickers, draw or doodle pens to add text atop your image, sharing tools and a quick way to delete the image if you don’t like it.
Yeah, that’s a lot of tools. Still, most of them are kinda fun teen snapchat sort of things, with stickers, write on photo and such. The only one you really need to focus on are the image adjustment filters, so tap on the three circles icon…
Look for the check superimposed over the effect: this is “No effect”, the leftmost option. You can quickly slide your finger to see all the many, many filters, then tap on one to see how it affects the image you’re viewing. Like this:
Instant black & white with the “grayscale” filter.
Or this:
That’s called the “Cartoon” filter and you can see it really pumps up the contrast which looks kinda cool with the cat’s stripes.
And, finally, the one that I suspect you’ll use the most: “Automatic” (the first of the filters). When I apply that one, the original photo just looks a bit more colorful, a bit more eye catching:
Compare that to the original image and you can see what I mean. Like it? Done and ready to save it? Just tap on “Save” on the top right and you’ve now got a new version of your photo that’s just a bit better (usually) than the original:
That should help you get better photos out of your Note9, but you might also want to just think about lighting and composition overall, as it should be giving you beautiful, vivid and sharp photos! However you proceed, have fun with the Note9 and don’t forget you can scribble on the images with your stylus pen too.
Pro Tip: We have tons of Android help on the site. Please spend some time checking it out while you’re here!