Behind the Snapshot: How the Galaxy S21’s AI Improves Your Photos in a Blink of an Eye, Night Mode

The Power to See in the Dark with Night Mode

Capturing stunning photographs at night can be a challenge for everyone. Low light and camera noise can lead to blurry, grainy photos, causing you to miss capturing that memorable moment. But thanks to the AI powering the camera on the Galaxy S21 series, you can now take stunning images in low light conditions with just the click of the shutter.

Intelligent Low Light Performance

Whether you’re trying to snap a photo of a beautiful cityscape at night or a group selfie in a low-lit restaurant, from the moment you click the shutter, the camera AI on the Galaxy S21 series begins a three-phase process. Here’s how it works:

1. During the capture phase, the camera takes multiple pictures of the scene at different exposure levels.
2. After capturing, the camera begins Multi-frame Processing, combining the images into one and enhancing the brightness of the picture.
3. Lastly, the AI image signal processor begins post-processing the image, reducing noise and fine-tuning the details. The results are crystal clear images, with greatly reduced noise and blur.

The Power of Multi-frame Processing

The keys to achieving that clarity and detail are in the multi-frame layering and AI restoration. When the multi-frame processing begins, the Galaxy S21 series intelligently selects the sharpest frame from all the images captured to use as a reference image. After selecting the reference frame, the AI aligns and registers the rest of the images before delivering the finalized photo. When finalized, the image has significantly reduced noise and a superior tone balance between the main subject and its background.

The same multi-frame process allows the Galaxy S21 to support clear, high-resolution images even under poor conditions such as when zooming in on a neon sign to create an image with high-dynamic range. While zooming in on distant subjects, the Galaxy S21 is capable of capturing up to 20 frames at different exposure values (ev), depending on the conditions. Capturing at different exposure values allows the camera to produce a sharper final image that has high-dynamic range with true-to-life exposure of both shadows and highlights. So, when you’re zooming in on that neon sign, you’ll be able to make out every letter.

During multi-frame processing, the AI determines whether it needs to use every frame captured, or just a subset. With more data from multiple frames, the Galaxy S21 series’ camera AI can deliver bright, tack-sharp images even in low light or when zoomed in from extremely far away—whether it’s a photo of a neon sign, or your favorite singer at a concert.

To learn more about the intelligent features behind the Galaxy S21 series’ powerful camera, be sure to check out the rest of the Behind the Snapshot series at Samsung Newsroom.