Too much noise reduction and sharpness - photos look like Photoshop disasters

[szfj]

First of all, I'm a photographer, therefore the post-production of the photos (in Lightroom) is an important step in my photography. Compared, Samung's automated post processing of photos is at a beginner's level, pulling all sliders to the max.

The problems:

1. Noise reduction is extreme. The result is a photo without fine details, textures are washed into flat pixel islands... - Bad!

2. Sharpness is extreme. Contrast areas have halos around, screaming that the sharpness slider is pulled to the extreme.

Although for many people the Samsung post-processing may seem ok, there is a good percent of people who actually care about the details. There must be a setting for noise reduction and sharpness adjustment:

1. Noise reduction - low, medium, high (default: high to keep silent the non-photographer people)

2. Sharpness - low, medium, high (default: high, for the same reason above)

Regarding the price tag of the S22 Ultra, it produces considerably worse images than an entry level point-and-shoot camera. Engineers at Samsung should be aware of this. A beginner amateur, equipped with a point-and-shoot camera would produce far better images (after watching several Youtube tutorials) than the photo team behind the S22 Ultra. That team should be fired ASAP and a professional photographer's recommendations should be taken in account in the next update of the photo app.

Seriously, Samsung, the photos of all devices look like amateur oil paintings. I have my DSLR camera as well, but again, regarding the price tag, most photographers purchase an S22 to replace their heavy camera in several situations.

A third setting would be

3. Do not save JPG's. Yes, A vast majority of photographers are absolutely not interested in an overprocessed JPG, that will be deleted immediately after downloading the images.

[Babishko]

Very very well constructed argument @szfj. As a non photographer who just enjoys taking as many pictures and videos on my S21 Ultra as I can, I must say that to have inbuilt camera settings for noise reduction and sharpness on it's phones could only be a positive move by Samsung. It would allow a passive photo taker to become more of a photographer and learn with their phone to make that journey should their interest deepen. It would not be a difficult software set up to install in phones either I would imagine. I hope this post reaches the eyes and ears of the right people at Samsung. People with vision.👍👍

[Glenntech]

Do you not use RAW settings?
You also have Expert RAW app you can use if you have
Really as great as something like the S22 Ultra is.
Camera sensors on phones are tiny, and are microscopic to something like my Lumix S1.
Even point and shoot cameras have bigger sensors.
JPEG is OK for social media stuff where most sites compress images anyway.
You are never going to get the same performance. Computational wise, yes there could be more refinement to do.
YouTubers etc bang on about the Pixel having the best smartphone cameras, but I can pick loads of holes in those as well

[Reylob]

I agree with you that the camera capabilities of the S22 Ultra are not very good. It has loads of functionalities which are cool, but the final result is not best. Samsung should have done a lot more in this department, considering that the camera was one of the main selling features, nightography and all that mumbo-jumbo.

However, ditching JPG is a step too far. I do not think that this phone had professional photographers as the target audience. IMHO, most users will be using just a point and shoot, some filters and that sort of stuff. I very much doubt that they will be using RAW editing, post-processing. It is not a feasible thing to do when we take hundreds of pictures on holidays or similar situations that one might like to share with family, friends and social media.

I might be wrong, but I think that for the general user taking pictures with the phone is more of casual thing rather than a professional one. A good lens could be more expensive than the phone.

It would be good if Samsung takes a team of professionals to improve the camera, but I do not think it will come to pass.

[szfj]

Excluding JPG would be an option, of course, by default JPG being the default setting.

BTW the Gallery app has no problems sharing DNG (RAW files) because upon sharing the DNG is converted to JPG. Another apps and devices may have problems, eg. Windows 10 is currently isn't rendering the preview of the DNG files created with S22 Ultra.

[szfj]

RAW is turned on for me in the default camera app. Beside the JPG's it produces a DNG file, but only in PRO mode.

Expert RAW is a joke so I sadly uninstalled. Seriously, it produces heavily postprocessed images, saved in DNG format. The true RAW files are produced only by the Camera app on S22 Ultra. 3rd party apps also produce true raw files, but unfortunately those apps can't access the 3x or the 10x camera.

It is ok to have a lot of noise with a tiny sensor, the main point is, the noise is overfiltered. Having some fine grain in the images keeps more detail. The original problem is, the camera app noise filtering is extreme.

[AJarosz]

I had to agree with OP. I just borrowed S22 Ultra from my friend for 2 days to check if it could be my next smartphone (as my current one is already 3 years old). I'm looking for something that could make me leave my mirrorless at home when I'm on vacation. And to be honest, I'm disappointed. We have one iPhone 14 PRO at home, and when I compare RAWs... Apple plays just in a different league. If you are interested, I can prepare some side-by-side comparisons and put them here.

[Nipun Sharma]

Absolutely TRUE. I just got this phone the S22 Ultra four days ago and immediately started to shoot photos. I was horrified at the images the camera was churning out. Horrendous oversharpening and Absolutely no fine textures and resolved detail. Photos from this phone are oil paintings. Can't believe the reviews got me again. Year after year I have upgraded to Samsung phone rs thinking they'd improve the image processing and make it more natural. But I have been disappointed each time. The S22 Ultra was the biggest disappointment yet with the kind of great reviews it was getting. Can't believe no review has picked up the image processing issues on this phone barring a few non mainstream channels on YouTube. It all seems to me that invites to Samsung events and freebies by their PR is too enticing to in front of journalistic integrity.

[JeniaCernisev]

I agree with all!!!! I have samsung s 22 plus exynos, and aggresive noice reduce blurr
all details on video, in low light is immposible to shoot.
Video looks like pain oil, all details are blurred!!!
I sended a lot examples to Samsung support, the main unswer was like - restart your phone, clear cash and other.
And also they sad what this problem is unic!!!!

[AJS23024]

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@szfj wrote:

First of all, I'm a photographer, therefore the post-production of the photos (in Lightroom) is an important step in my photography. Compared, Samung's automated post processing of photos is at a beginner's level, pulling all sliders to the max.

The problems:

1. Noise reduction is extreme. The result is a photo without fine details, textures are washed into flat pixel islands... - Bad!

2. Sharpness is extreme. Contrast areas have halos around, screaming that the sharpness slider is pulled to the extreme.

Although for many people the Samsung post-processing may seem ok, there is a good percent of people who actually care about the details. There must be a setting for noise reduction and sharpness adjustment:

1. Noise reduction - low, medium, high (default: high to keep silent the non-photographer people)

2. Sharpness - low, medium, high (default: high, for the same reason above)

Regarding the price tag of the S22 Ultra, it produces considerably worse images than an entry level point-and-shoot camera. Engineers at Samsung should be aware of this. A beginner amateur, equipped with a point-and-shoot camera would produce far better images (after watching several Youtube tutorials) than the photo team behind the S22 Ultra. That team should be fired ASAP and a professional photographer's recommendations should be taken in account in the next update of the photo app.

Seriously, Samsung, the photos of all devices look like amateur oil paintings. I have my DSLR camera as well, but again, regarding the price tag, most photographers purchase an S22 to replace their heavy camera in several situations.

A third setting would be

3. Do not save JPG's. Yes, A vast majority of photographers are absolutely not interested in an overprocessed JPG, that will be deleted immediately after downloading the images.

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This "watercolor" problem, as I call it, continues in later models like the S23, and it's baffling unless the engineers assume you'll only be viewing photos on a scrunched down phone screen. How can they really think that way, though?

A partial workaround is using the "Open Camera" app with noise reduction OFF, but it can't access the telephoto or ultrawide lenses so far.