yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Surfeur-des-Reves:
Thanks for your time and feedback!

And to make this test file an 'official release' now, here it is:

🌟 NiCkAM8PRO V1.5.1 (AGC V9.5 GCam) Custom Pack (APK + Profile): https://gofile.io/d/WFuMx5 💥

1) Install the APK file (remove any other GCAM app/package that you may have previously installed in case of any conflict during installation)

2) Create a new folder named 'AGC.8.4' in your Download folder. Inside this AGC.8.4 folder, create a folder called 'configs' and copy/paste the .agc custom profile included in my zip file.

3) Start the app, open the Quick Settings panel, then 'Load Configs', select my profile.

4) Have fun! :)

Changelog:

Thanks to some active & friendly community here, the Face Tracking function has been improved. Some under-the-hood tweaks in the RamPatcher to improve picture quality and get softer, more natural results. Tried to reduce noise for the selfie cam as well (without reducing details too much), even though we don't have a proper noise model inside the app yet (when we do, expect higher quality results!). Number of HDR frames in 'HDR+Enhanced' mode has been reduced to 7, to shoot faster!

As always, I'd encourage users to enable Auto-White Balance (AWB) whenever they shoot in low-light / night time situations and under artificial lighting conditions, for better colour reproduction and more vibrant / less desaturated results.

For close-up shots (but not only), you might getter better results if you manually focus on the brightest zone of your subject, as it will usually ensure better overall contrasts, gamma levels and less clipped highlights.

For higher-quality / less noisy results in low-light shots, you can adjust the shutter speed slider, on the left side of the viewfinder, to 1/15 or even 1/8s of a second (just remember to remain still for a second or two).

You can also try the "Leica Filter" mode if you fancy some different color temperature / white balance and vignetting in your shots.

Cheers!
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] GroovyGeek:
Tap load configs and import it
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] penfold:
***(my mistake ....this was actually v39 ....will add v42 shortly)
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
by my testing when I reduce the jpg size else I see some very small artifacts for very small details.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] penfold:
ok my last post was mistakenly v39, here is the proper test of JavaSabr's v42.

The jpeg file size is more or less equal to stock now.

These are full size.

Big Thanks to JavaSabr.

(The first set are HDR++ as comes enebled by default, the second set is regular HDR+)

To me the standard v42 HDR++ produces the best image for photographic quality shots.

For quick snapshots or sharing the v42 HDR+ sharp is probably best.

*updated* night shots added

HDR++

Stock

v42

v42 sharp

HDR+

v42

v42 sharp

Night Shots v42 HDR++ (it is as dark as it looks in reality)
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] penfold:
very quick comparison stock v JavaSabr v NiCkAM8PRO V1.5.1 (AGC V9.5 GCam). (both on HDR+).

My impressions ...

NiCkAM8PRO good detail, a little oversharpened for my taste, some may like itThe file size is also much larger than the other 2 in the outdoor shot, was comparable in the indoor shots.

JavaSabr more accurate color and less sharpening, my preference.

Stock

JavaSabr

NiCkAM8PRO
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] PhilMorin:
AGC with Surfer 1.5.1 inside, HRD+ (not ++), 10x, 1/15, ISO 15000. I think that's quite amazing from a phone in such light condition on a 230mm F4.7 lens. Colors would need a bit of tweaking (enabling AWB actually made it worse) but details is exceptional in the circumstances. Tried HDR++ wasn't better.

While outside, stock can sort of pull its own... Here it couldn't keep up with gcam except for colors which is much closer to reality.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] PhilMorin:
So far, I'm coming to the same conclusion as you. For shots that don't have peoples faces in them, I use lmc v42 and as soon as there are faces, I switch to AGC Surfer 1.5.1 which is still quite close to lmc from an overall picture quality but with the added ease of use of fast focusing on faces, which in this case is probably the main subject.

For night shots I'm still unsure. Stock can do some pretty decent night shots. Though you picture of the tree at night with lmc is quite good!
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] GroovyGeek:
I am in the middle of the Arizona desert waiting for better light so I snapped some tele pics with Jaba v42, Surfeur v1.5.1, and plain vanilla config (GG_v4). Looking at the images Jaba is too smoothed (for my taste), Surfeur is over sharpened and has artifacts in smooth color gradients, and plain vanilla is minimally over sharpened and somewhat noisy in the shadows. I am uploading 50% resized JPEGs so not sure this will come out clearly but the best place to look is the mountain ridgeline and the texture of the mountain below the ridgeline. The texture is pretty soft with Jaba, there are clearly visible halos along the ridgeline with Surfeur s well as speckle artifacts in the sky, and mild halos and shadows noise with GG_v4. I claim no accomplishment here because I am merely using the Google library settings with some very minor modifications. Also want to clarify that the sole purpose of this post is to provide feedback to the great work that Jaba and Surfeur are doing, not criticize them.

Surfeur, I am pretty sure they the artifacts in the sky are from the use of the Raven HDR+ model and specifying Google lens logic. Might want to try removing one or both of these and see how you like it.

10x Surfeur v1.5.1

10x Jaba v42

10x GG v4

3x Surfeur

3x Jaba

3x GG
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] GroovyGeek:
GG_v4 for AGC

Removed the last vestige of customization because I can't come up with anything that is better than default. The only non standard things are HDR- changed to -3.0 and both sharpness and clarity of the front module reduced substantially to make my SO look even more beautiful 😍
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] penfold:
I have yet to do a proper night (or day) shoot, but I took a couple more quick snaps ....I can't even post the stock night shots they are so laughably awful at full resolution ...they only look decent at 50% or lower size.

The indoor one was HDR+. The two outdoor photos were taken with HDR++, ...and for the heck of it, the 4th photo is the third one processed
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Surfeur-des-Reves:
Thanks for the comparison. Please make sure to disable AWB when shooting in daylight, as AWB is made for night shots & artificial light conditions, hence the red tint in bright sunlight. Regarding sharpness, my preference goes for a bit of sharpness on main cam, and going anything lower is not really my personal taste (however, I agree it can be lowered a bit for zoom lenses). To each their own, sure, but I mostly like to do street photography, architecture shots, and enjoy being able to read signage when zooming in. The last shot you added without AWB 'ON' fits my own preference quite well, not too saturated, slightly sharp but far less than stock cam. I'm more curious about the filesize, as I select 97% JPEG compression, which is nothing too wild. I usually get shots between 2 to 6MB, quite on par with stock 12MP. Anyway, I'll have a look at it. Thanks for your feedback, really appreciated, and it will surely get better with more time and tweaking (just had the device for about 10 days).
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Thanks for the samples :)
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Surfeur-des-Reves:
I'll sure have a look at your suggestions and do some more tests, to see if it improves anything. Thanks for your feedback!
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
You have more sharper version of my config :)
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] kevinmtz:
I really like this config my only issue is the front camera, pictures come out blurred and dark and they seem like they have very low quality is there any fix?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Surfeur-des-Reves:
Thanks, I'll have a look at it then.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] arsenal74:
I am wondering do any of these gcams not have a shutter delay? With the UK now getting Snapdragon I was hopeful for a better experience over Exynos but in truth I find them all too slow to be really usable. Has Google moving to custom SOCs changing the field here?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] PhilMorin:
Use hdr+ and not hdr++ and you'll have no shutter lag. You still see it process the pic after pressing shutter but the image is taken at the time you actually pressed the shutter. When using hdr++ the pic might be taken almost 1 second after hitting the shutter button.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] GroovyGeek:
But for some reason you have disabled the 10x lens in it. Will have to find where LMC blacklists IDs, I find its menus difficult to navigate.

PS. I think that the compression for posting here hides the differences I am referring to. Will try to DM you full size JPEGs.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] PhilMorin:
Might need to clear cache. I use the v42 sharp and all lenses work fine
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] woffu22:
No, in HDR+ the 10x not working correctly. In HDR ++ it's ok
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] PhilMorin:
Without getting out of my couch, this is 10x in hdr+.. Unless outside shots have an issue, looks fine to me?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] woffu22:
Hm, don't understand why.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] PhilMorin:
That's not the 10x not working, that's a low light situation where by default Java limits max ISO. Enable pro mode to get rid of the ISO limit and make it work with hdr+. That said, quality will be lower because of higher ISO so for those low light shots sticking with hdr++ should be better.

Try an outside shot, it should work fine
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] woffu22:
Tried a comparison

AGC LMC Samsung and sometimes RawExpert
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] woffu22:
Ok, understand
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
I like how my config works in this test :) Thanks.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] vandal4e:
LMC is severely lacking details in tree branches shot and the house zoomed shot, LMC has 0 details on the house texture, AGC has lots of sharpening artifacts on the tree shot though, the truth is somewhere inbetween hope we get the right balance for spring greenery
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] ajarosz:
Well, all of it is a personal taste for me. LMC has all details, but it is just not oversharpened as others. I much prefer how it looks. If I want to have a sharper look, it is effortless to apply additional sharpening after. An example - I took LCM and AGC photos, applied some sharpening on LCM, and there you go, more details on LMC. More of that - more fine details, that from the output of Stock or AGC are impossible to obtain.

Left - LCM + sharpening, Right - AGC (100% zoom on last photos of the house):
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] penfold:
i was going to say the same thing ....if you really like the oversharpening you can use one to your preference or even the shaper profile included. Here is the Java zoom also sharpened by me.

That being said the AGC is not bad at all, except the first two, which look severly over smoothed. The others are quite good except for the oversharpening (to me).

I can't quite understand how they look so smoothed in the first two shots and then oversharpened in the others.

Also one thing I'm not sure about is you can see some patches with a blue tinge on the wall in the LMC shot with heavy sharpening added which you can't see in the AGC so curious if they are actually there or not.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] woffu22:
Personal I prefer after a lot of testing LMC, if you like oversharped take Samsung, for 10x ExpertRaw is not bad.

Great Job JavaSabr !

It's unbelievable what a bad Job Samsung is doing, to sharp, to much brightness and to much noise.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] GroovyGeek:
While I agree with the spirit of the responses above there are at least two things to consider.

The OP specifically mentioned branches against sky and none of the responders tested that. It is possible that the OP had motion blur or LMC may have trouble with closely spaced details. My personal observation is that the "regular" version produces mushy fine texture. I have not tested the "sharp" version sufficiently yet to have an opinion on it.

As to "I can always sharpen if necessary" ... Reconstruction of detail is always subject to assumptions and I have not seen a program other than Topaz that does it well. Removing details is actually far easier. The only gotcha is ”oversharpened", which I think some here use liberally to mean "I see more detail than I like ". The only ”oversharpening” that is not trivial to reverse is halos, and I have seen it on only one config here, and only when it was a sharp edge against a monochrome background. I repeated the tests today and could not reproduce it with more forgiving circumstances.

It's great that we have choices. Some of the responses lately have been on the hostile side. Jaba and Surfeur put in a lot of effort and, like it or not, we need to respect it.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Surfeur-des-Reves:
Hi, I hope it helps fix your issue with front cam.

Cheers!

[Edit: Reuploaded to V1.6.1 after fixing some issue with back main lens]
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] ajarosz:
OP mentioned the lack of texture on the house as well, but ok - branches. Let's examine that example.

As mentioned, the AGC looks way oversharpened, to the point, where artifacts are visible in the sky. Stock is just bad, the details are just not there - too much NR and sharpening (and I think applied in this order - look how small branches take more pixels than on the GCAM pictures). After taking all three, adding sharpness to the LMC voila - it has at least the same amount of details, as the best one from the other two. But to make it 'comparable' with AGC I had to oversharpen it as well. And as a bonus, it does not have as many artifacts in the sky.

So please, don't confuse a number of details with oversharpening images. Sharpening is just applying more contrast on different levels of the picture, it is not magic. There are of course different techniques, different software, etc. but it just applying additional contrast to detected edges. And Topaz is a great tool, but it just brings effectively details that are already in the picture, not making them up.

As for what is easier - technically yes. You are right. You cannot just create details. But as you have mentioned, with halos and other artifacts it is way more complicated.

For me, and again, it is personal taste, branches look best on the LMC ones. I prefer to have applied too less sharpening if I know the details are on the picture (and they are), than applying a tiny bit too much oversharpening with visible artifacts (which is the case for both stock and AGC in that example).

AGC on the left, then stock in the middle, and LMC on the right:
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] vandal4e:
as i also pointed out none of them are perfect at the moment and the real deal must be balanced inbetween, which is understandable as device is just a month old, configs will improve further as will libs, literally new versions come out every day, all of them are " good enough " which isn't the reason we resort to gcam and pay 1k euros for
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] woffu22:
Just for fun and comparison 🙂

Sony
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Dayuser:
Comparison?? To what? There is no other pictures than Sony pictures.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Barmenchik:
You made the camera work:

1.LMC8.4_R15_ruler from JavaSabr post

or

SGCAM_8.4.400.42.XXX_STABLE_V43 from oVeRdOsE post!!??

This is 2 different GCam Mod. The first one doesn't work for me, but the second one works great!!
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Talderon:
I managed to get SGCAM_8.4.400.42.XXX_STABLE_V43 working a couple days after I got my S23U (Feb 10) and honestly, it really sucked. I am not hopeful that other versions will work any better as the app really does not seem to take full advantage of the hardware now.

I may be wrong with this version, but I was so underwhelmed that I don't feel it's even worth it.

GCAM images came out so much darker than Samsung and also a LOT more noise.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] jutley:
I don't think it's good as stock just ot has more options?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Talderon:
With Expert Raw, are there REALLY more options with GCAM? I could not find as much with GCAM as I can with Sammy's apps.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Fl1nt91:
Gcam is much better
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] jutley:
Not in night mode it's terrible
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Matzinger87:
For those willing to test, I created three basic settings for GCam and S23U:

https://we.tl/t-CEhLb0uT4o

...apk, xml and lib file are all included. Don't forget to load the lib, otherwise results will be worse. Too load the xml, you need to start the app in video mode. Otherwise the app will crash at startup.

Explanations for the different xmls:

DAY

Suitable for most environments - good compromise between low noise and shutter speed.

Night mode working (up to 1/7sec shutter speed).

Bug: astro mode doesn't work.

NIGHT

For dark environments - medium noise.

Night mode working (up to 1/4sec shutter speed) and astro, too.

Bug: dynamic range sometimes bad when using night mode.

ASTRO

For very dark environments - low noise.

Night mode working (up to 1/2sec shutter speed) and astro, too.

Bug: dynamic range sometimes bad when using night mode.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] PhilMorin:
In the settings, select the middle option for hdr. The default 3rd option which is improved hdr+ adds a significant delay because of all the photo stacking
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] GroovyGeek:
Just did two side by side images with GCAM and stock pro under low light conditions and GCAM looses badly in terms of levels of detail and noise. The first image is GCAM, the second stock. Both are resized to similar size. It seems that the bining efficiency of the GCAM is far worse and/or GCAM cranked up ISO more than necessary.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Could you check the logs from the first mod, please? I really don't understand what is wrong with your device
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Which GCam mod?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] GroovyGeek:
The one from the DPR thread
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
In this case I agree with you, this was a reason for me to start working on my own config for LMC GCam :) As I understand LMC doesn't work on your device as well, right? :(
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Ricardo_G:
It´s working, thanks
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Ricardo_G:
This is working too. Thanks
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Fl1nt91:
You don't have to use night mode, but regolar mode with HDR+E, then play with setting dehaze_expo in the library menu, and in case manually set a longer shutter speed e.g. 1/8s

Tell me if these are terrible
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] GroovyGeek:
Tried your LMC version. The noise performance is indeed notably better but... the contrast curve is significantly harsher which negates some of the benefits. There is also the "feature" that others have point out - files are saved notably darker than they appear on the onscreen preview.

I don't want to minimize the good work that both you and others do but I can get similar (and IMO somewhat better) results with a few simple tweaks of stock in pro mode - take saturation, shadows, and highlights down a few clicks, turn contrast up slightly to compensate and you have great noise reduction and great shadow curve without endless parameter lists.

Not to mention that I no longer have to deal with one of gcam's more annoying features - saving the DNG files in a separate folder.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Barmenchik:
Sure...
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
I had s21u (exynos) before s23u and 95% my photos were made in pro mode + LR, but when I started playing with GCam on s23U I see that I cannot have such good result as from GCam, especially about details...
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
I see in your log that you didn't apply my config and GCam still try to initialize wrong sensors.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] woffu22:
To the pics above #568
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Dayuser:
Okay, i miss that. Sorry (y)
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] woffu22:
Nickam8pro 161
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] vandal4e:
thanks, no improvement on sharpening artifacts all over the image visible in the tree shot, will stick to LMC for now
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] GroovyGeek:
I like this one very much, it is starting to take shape to the point where I am almost ready to abandon my own 😀 The switch to the Pixel 5 HDR+ model seems to have taken care of the solid color anomalies and there is now barely noticeable sharpening halos, and only if I do obscene pixel peeping.

What was the consideration for lowering the # of HDR shots to 7? Shutter response time?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Surfeur-des-Reves:
Absolutely. To make it more convenient to use.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] woffu22:
Some more, detail enlargement of AGC, LMC and Samsung

Lack of dynamic range.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] GroovyGeek:
Either increase the number of HDR shots or use HDR++
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] woffu22:
A mix in the middle of all would be perfect 🙂
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] woffu22:
Can do, it's just out of hand compared to stock
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] woffu22:
Here with HDR ++, compared to stock.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] ajarosz:
LMC too cold, but aparat of that I like shop the most.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] woffu22:
You mean AGC too cold and partly lack of details, LMc is a little bit too soft but has more details.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] ajarosz:
LMC too cold. The second one. Wall outside the window is bluish.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] vandal4e:
LMC shot is almost as noisy as stock in this comparison, AGC smoothed all noise out thus smearing some fine details
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] GroovyGeek:
This is likely a side effect of the design choices GCAM sets. By default the lower and upper limits for HDR are set to -1.0 and +8.5 eV. That gives you great shadow detail but any highlight that is more than 1 stop overexposed is blown out. Jaba lowers HDR- to -2.0 and Surfeur actually increases it on some of the lenses to positive territory. You can modify either config to more reasonable (IMO) values, say -3 and +5 and see how you like that. However that may lower the contrast in images under normal light. Or, you can just make it a habit to tap on the brightest part of the image before pressing the shutter.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Bck2Monke:
I recently discovered that there's an official Samsung app called "Camera assistant" where you can toggle "Picture softening". It actually works well at removing Sammy's oversharpening and noise in the default camera app, the results (at least to me) are better than the default config.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Ipse_Tase:
Unfortunately it applies ANOTHER filter over the processed image. I wish it would have controlled processing instead.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Ridwan Siam:
So far, I have tried LMC8.4 and AGC8.4

I have noticed that the front camera performance for AGC is not that good for my taste. Pictures come out noisy, smooth, and less detailed.

Which version of GCAM here has the best quality for the front cam?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Dayuser:
Whats your opinion about these photos? What is most natural to your eyes? I noticed that colors is little bit different in LMC, wood is darker in stock and AGC.

LMC green glass color is also different.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] penfold:
ah, ok ...so now i can see that the blue patch tinged areas on the wall are indeed there very faintly, the LMC mod once heavily sharpened makes them more pronounced.

The branch photo is really good.

There looks like some improvement with the Nickam8pro 161.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] penfold:
Nikon D7100 vs JavaSabr v42

only resized the nikon to match size, no other changes. The Shots on LMC were mostly taken with HDR++, i don't remember. The shots with the nikon were taken on full auto with the exception of the rock which was taken with a warmer temp.