Tip
Blurry background is what makes portraits really nice, and it may be worth turning up the settings for best results.
The secret to good-looking portraits is that the background is blurred so that the person in the picture can stand completely alone in focus. Due to their small lenses, mobile cameras get a very long depth of field on anything other than real close-ups, so then you have to create a blurred background in other ways. On mobile phones with multiple cameras, several cameras are often used at the same time to judge the distance, but it is also common to use subject recognition in image processing to determine what should be in focus and what should be blurred.
So it doesn’t necessarily have to be a portrait you take, it can also be a flower or some other object, but according to my experience, Samsung’s blur mode is the best when it comes to portraits, for other objects the camera is worse at judging when the blur should start and the result looks less natural.
Once it’s time to take the portrait, there are a couple of settings you can make, but you don’t really need to worry about them at the moment of the photo. The reason is that you can adjust these settings afterwards, in the gallery app. So you can play with the effects and choose the one you think looks best after taking the picture.
If you tap the dot in the lower left corner of the viewfinder in portrait mode, you can adjust the settings. Then you also get a control for power strength. The higher you turn it up, the stronger the effect. You can also choose between different filters of which blurred background is just one. Here you can also expose the subject, shoot in black and white or have the background in black and white but the subject in color. The studio filter may require an explanation. Then an effect is added that makes it look like the face is lit by a lamp, which can make quite a difference if the light is boring when you’re taking photos.
There is also a portrait video mode for blurring the background when filming. You’ll find it under the “More” option among the list of camera modes next to the viewfinder.
This is an excerpt from a longer article with camera tips for Samsung mobiles, which was previously published exclusively for Plus members on Mobil.se. Here you can become a Plus member and thus get direct access to all articles on Mobil.se. As a plus member, you get collected tips and many other in-depth, guiding articles. You can find the entire original article here.