Portrait

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Contents

1. Portrait Mode
2. Portrait Mode using Dual Camera
3. Portrait Mode using a Single Camera
4. Portrait Mode of Galaxy Camera
5. Notes

Portrait Mode

Portrait mode is a camera feature that focuses on the subject of the picture while blurring the rest of the background. It uses a variety of lighting effects to ultimately produce a picture that looks like it was shot in a professional photo studio.

Smartphone cameras have smaller lenses and sensors when compared to DSLR cameras, making it difficult to take pictures with a shallow depth of field (DoF), which means that focusing on just a small area of the image is not easy with smartphones. To overcome this limitation, this feature has been introduced in smartphones to make background elements out-of-focus through computer vision technology with the use of additional cameras and deep-learning based AI image processing.

Portrait Mode using Dual Camera

In this mode, a process called depth mapping is employed to distinguish the subject from the background elements and then apply the blur effect. Depth map, which refers to the distance of the subject from the camera, is measured using the disparity of two cameras i.e. the differences observed in the pictures shot with two different cameras. Then, the distance between the same points in the image taken by the two cameras is calculated to obtain the disparity value. The nearer the object, the larger the disparity value whereas the further the object, the smaller the value of disparity.

 Thus, according to the depth map obtained through the above process, portrait mode applies light-intensity blur to elements closer to the subject and high-intensity blur to elements further away from the subject.

Portrait Mode using Single Camera

The portrait effect can also be applied with a single camera. If there are no dual cameras, AI technology is used to facilitate the procurement of depth information. The AI model, through its intelligent-learning scene recognition from multiple images, can precisely recognize areas with humans and pets, and hence infer information about the distance of these subjects. Based on this information obtained by the AI model, you can apply the background blur effect and various other effects, such as changing the colour of the background or replacing it with another image etc.

Portrait Mode of Galaxy Camera

The Samsung Galaxy Camera’s portrait mode provides a variety of background and lighting effects such as blur, studio, high-key mono, low-key mono, colour background and colour point.[1]

• Blur: It separates the subject from the background and applies the blur effect to the background.
• Studio: It applies lighting effects on the subject and blurs the background.
• High-Key Mono: This is a black-and-white mode with a white background that allows the photographer to highlight the subject using the lighting effects to obtain an overall brighter photograph.
• Low-Key Mono: It is a black-and-white mode with a black background. It works similarly to high-key mono by allowing the photographer to highlight the subject using lighting effects.
• Colour Backdrop: This mode changes the background colour and applies lighting effects on the subject. For instance, it detects the colour of the person’s clothes and automatically sets the background colour to a complementary colour that may be better suited to the photograph.
• Colour Point: This mode preserves the colour of the subject and changes the background to black and white. Similar to the high-key and low-key mono mode, the photographer can highlight the subject more using lighting effects.

Portrait mode is not limited to only capturing photographs of people; it can also be used to shoot portraits of pets using various background effects.

 1. Portrait Mode of Front Camera

In the front camera, the portrait mode effect is applied with a single camera, using deep-learning based AI-technology.

2. Portrait Mode of Rear Camera

In the portrait mode of the rear camera, two kinds of technology are applied, the first being Depth Map and the second being Segmentation Map technology. Segmentation Map technology is a technique of partitioning images based on the pixel of different parts of the image. Both these technologies use dual cameras to shoot pictures in portrait mode.

In the case of the Galaxy Z Fold 4, which has three in-built cameras (ultra-wide camera, wide-angle camera and 3x optical zoom telephoto camera),  while using 1x lenses the wide-angle and ultra-wide camera is used whereas while using the 3x lenses the 3x optical zoom and wide-angle cameras are used to obtain the depth map.

3. Edit Portrait mode photos in Gallery

The gallery application provides editing options and allows users to change the type and intensity of the background effect of the photos shot in portrait mode. To add more focus to the face, users can add virtual lighting by moving it to the desired position and adjusting the intensity. You can also obtain a studio-like photo using virtual lighting and background replacement tools.[2]

Notes

[1] It is being applied in some models such as the Galaxy S/Note/Fold/Flip/Tab series that were released after Galaxy S20.

[2] It is being applied in some models such as Galaxy S/Note/Fold/Flip/Tab/A/M series.