Camera automatically removed background to several photos without permission!

[Forrestdale]

Hi.

After Googling all over the place, this problem seems unique - has anyone heard of it before, or can tell me what happened?

I was taking photos of my dogs today at the beach with my S22 Ultra, and thought I'd captured some good shots. One of the dogs rarely stands still, so I was pressing the shutter icon quickly in succession, hoping to get at least one good pose. I didn't check the results at the time, and continued on the walk, but when I got home I found that both the Gallery and Google Photos apps showed a "contact sheet" where many of the photos had the real background removed and replaced by a blue, green or purple background (see attached screenshot from the Gallery app on the phone).

When I click on one of the affected photos, I simply get an enlarged version of the photo, still with the plain coloured background. The EXIF data looks comparable to normal shots, with the exception that the coloured background photos are always about 3MB larger (see the two examples taken from the Google Photos app).

It doesn't look like the phone has stored an un-altered version somewhere, and there appears to be no way to revert the coloured photos to what they should look like. An option to remove the background is nice to have available, but this is a very quick-and-dirty result, and I don't want the camera doing it automatically!

Ideally, I'd like to get back to the originals, but if that's not possible, I'd love to know what happened so I can make sure it doesn't do it again!

Some data on the phone and software:

Phone model: SM-S908B/DS

Android version: 13

One UI Version: 5.1

Camera app version: 13.1.01.54

Any suggestions would be most welcome!

Forrest

[GoanGeek · Accepted solution]

You have been shooting in portrait mode with the backdrop option ON .

Either don't use portrait mode or change to blur or something.

It's the small round circle on the right bottom when in portrait mode.

[RajeevPR · Accepted solution]

Backdrop option on on portrait mode, nothing to wry. Go for blur option or try pro mode for better detailed shots

[Forrestdale]

RajeevPR- Very many thanks! Yes, you are  absolutely right. I never even realised that there was a special "Portrait" mode, as well as "Photo", "Video" and "More" modes.

I've been playing with the settings, and if I click on the hollow circle at the bottom right of the screen in Portrait mode, it allows me to change settings for the Blur, Studio, High-key Mono, Low-key Mono, Backdrop, and Colour Point features. I've now set the effect strength to 0 for all of them, so if I mistakenly take a photo in Portrait mode, there shouldn't be too much damage done.

I've attached screenshots of Portrait mode, and of the Backdrop feature, for anyone else who has this problem in the future.

Many thanks to you and GoanGeek for sorting me out - much appreciated!

[Forrestdale]

Thanks very much for your help! See my reply to RajeevPR. Problem sorted!

[GoanGeek]

If you don't want to use the portrait option you can remove it or add other ones you might want to use.

When in camera.mode
Swipe left on the portrait, photo, video etc till u see the more and then plus sign on the right.
Click on it and you can either drag the ones from the top to bottom or remove the portrait option to the top.

[Forrestdale]

Brilliant! I've removed the Portrait option and replaced it with Panorama, which I do use from time to time, and would be handy for quick access.

Obviously I need to set aside some time to explore the Camera app in more detail, to see what else there is to be discovered!

Many thanks again.

[RajeevPR]

Thanks to you for pointing this out and sharing screenshots, may it help someone in future

[Nicolek1295]

I have the same issue. Is there a way to recover the original background on photos already taken in portrait mode with the solid color background?