Samsung’s Space Zoom feature for Galaxy phones came under the microscope (or maybe telescope) again this week after a Reddit post claimed that the software process involves producing extra detail. Samsung has now responded to the allegations and disputed the claims in the form of an official new citation blog post (opens in a new tab).
We asked Samsung directly if photos of the moon taken with phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra include overlaying additional details or textures that are not present in the original photos. In an official statement, Samsung said: “When a user takes a photo of the Moon, the AI-based scene optimization technology recognizes the Moon as the main subject and takes multiple shots to achieve a multi-frame composition, after which the AI enhances the details, image quality and colors. It does not apply any image overlay to the photo.”
Samsung added that this process is not mandatory, stating that “users can disable the AI-powered Scene Optimizer, which will disable automatic detail enhancement in all photos taken.” However, doing so will prevent you from achieving the results that are possible with Scene Optimization turned on, as this feature goes far beyond adjusting the exposure.
These comments reflect what Samsung previously said about its Space Zoom moon photos being reformatted into new ones blog post (opens in a new tab) which is similar to the one we saw earlier in a Samsung Community Wall (opens in a new tab).
The post reiterates that the moon photos are based on “deep learning-based AI technology” but this is used to “eliminate residual noise and enhance image details” rather than copying and pasting extra details that were not captured by the camera . Interestingly, Samsung several times refers to the results as “moon shots” and not photos, indicating the artificial nature of the processing.
Another crazy photo of the moon taken with the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. Without a tripod, even with full space zoom. #SamsungGalaxyS23Ultra pic.twitter.com/PFngh8vcBEMarch 5, 2023
So where does that leave us? The boring answer is that all photography is on a sliding scale between the so-called “real” kind – photons hitting the camera’s sensor and converted into an electrical signal – and the “fake” which Samsung has been accused of again in this recent controversy.
AI-powered modes like Samsung’s latest Scene Optimizer, which has been creating moon shots like the one below since the Samsung Galaxy S21, undoubtedly push photography towards the more artificial end of that scale. That’s because it uses multi-frame synthesis, deep learning, and what Samsung mysteriously calls its “detail enhancement engine” to produce impressive end results.
We still don’t know exactly what’s going on in this engine, and it’s safe to say that the extra details of the moon are conjured up from the very limited information captured by the Galaxy camera. But Samsung still disputes that this detail is simply superimposed or superimposed on the Space Zoom moon photos.
Significantly, Samsung nods to the Reddit controversy at the end of its blog post, where it says it “continues to improve the Scene Optimizer to reduce any potential confusion that may arise between the act of taking a photo of the real moon and the image of the moon.”
Analysis: a debate with fuzzy edges
Samsung’s response isn’t detailed enough to settle the debate about whether its Space Zoom photos are “fake” because it’s really a matter of opinion. But this goes against the suggestion that it just massively throws extra details and textures into your shots.
The problem with this debate is that every digital photo – even the raw file – is some kind of fabrication. During the demosaicing process, when the sensor’s red, green, and blue pixel values are created, a process called interpolation simply guesses the most likely value of adjacent pixels.
With the addition of multi-frame processing and AI sharpening, it becomes clear that each photo is heavily artificial (and conjectural). But the question raised in this debate is whether Samsung’s phones have gotten to the point where some of its photos – particularly those of the moon – have completely disengaged from the act of capturing photons.
This is a debate that will probably never be settled. The AI algorithms fill in the details based on the patterns they see as they train on a huge dataset of similar photos, but Samsung says what it doesn’t do is download a previous image of the moon to overlay it on a blurry photo. Whether this process is acceptable to you is up to you, the next time you see a glorious full moon and only have a Galaxy smartphone to hand.