yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
On base X1 you have as well 8-45 frames depends on used profile but only with the same exposition, so it's not HDR, just less noise and more details. True HDR is using bracketing when different frames have different exposition, on base s23 it supports 0.6x, 3x and selfie, X1 doesn't support it in any GCam
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Have uploaded v36 release:

Working GCAM for S23 Ultra

EDIT: I RECOMMEND FOLLOWING THIS POST TO INSTALL WORKING GCAM LMC version (remind to enable HDR++) Post in thread 'Working GCAM for S23 Ultra' https://xdaforums.com/t/working-gcam-for-s23-ultra.4550019/post-88407193 AGC 9.1 Post in thread...

xdaforums.com
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Kuti_tom:
JavaSabr, thank you for your work.​

I have a problem. In the latest configurations, "face detection" does not work when focusing. The last version in which this works for me is v28. in later versions not anymore. I am currently using AGC9.1.24_V12.0_samsung. Can you help me solve this problem?

Thanks for the fixes for X3/X10 in v36, they are very good.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
I have disabled it specially because GCam apples beauty face filter in many cases which you cannot disable.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Kuti_tom:
Thanks for the answer. Is it possible for me to manually enable this function?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Steerpike58:
OK, so just having multiple frames to play with can give a better image - I understand that. But look at these samples: I took 7 shots of the same scene; Stock/HDR off; Stock/HDR on; AGC/Profile disabled; AGC/Balanced-LDR; AGC/Balanced-HDR; AGC/MaxQ-LDR; AGC/MaxQ-HDR. All 5 AGC variants were almost indistinguishable (slightly darker with the LDRs). But what I'm focusing on here is - even the AGC/Profile disabled version was way, way better than the stock/HDR off, and looked almost the same as stock/HDR on (note the cloud detail):

I presume that disabling the profile means you are getting just one frame? So what magic is AGC doing that yields such great results relative to stock/HDR off?

Note - in the sample with AGC/MaxQ-HDR, I saw this:

A car was moving through the scene. I presume this is typical due to the use of multiple frames in the different profiles.

(AGC 8.8v8 v33, S23+, 1.0x lens)
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
When you use disabled profile, you use google stock profile, but you still have my "core changes" which effects to even Google stock.

About HDR on disabled profile, it's not a magic, GCam tries to make the same result as from HDR without HDR, and depends on scene it can be close to real HDR, but in terms of artifacts any difficult scene will have a lot of noise
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] ultimatdan:
Does anyone know which of these GCams also works best on the S22 Ultra?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Steerpike58:
Thanks for the info. When I turn on HDR+ in settings, the photo takes a noticeably longer time to take - there's even a message telling me "Taking HDR+ Enhanced Photo". Since you say there's no HDR feature available with S23+ '1.0x' lens, Is this delay a complete waste of time - no extra bracketing shots are being taken? I'm casually observing no difference, but I just wondered what is going on during that significant delay. Assuming it's just a waste of time (trying and failing to take the HDR bracketing shots) I'll stop trying to use it ever again ...
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] tomaskubec:
@JavaSabr is the Astro mode usable to get a smooth waterfall effect, or just Night Mode MaxQ? Or what should I use to smoothen out the water movement? On traditional cameras you set the shutter to ~1 sec or so, not sure how should I proceed with gcam.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Android083:
I'll let JavaSabr respond for GCAM.

To get the effect you want, you need something called an ND filter which can be placed in front of the lens. The latest version of ExpertRaw has an ND filter function which you can try.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] tomaskubec:
Sure, I even have physical ND filter that can be attached to the body of s23u, let me try that with GCAM.

I tried the sw emulation in ExpertRaw but it looked...weird.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Ludeape:
Maybe will try GCAM on my s23ultra, but the stock Samsung camera and software has definitely closed the gap since i was using GCAM on my old Note 9.

On the Note 9 GCAM was absolutely stunning!

I would say its not really needed as much as it used to be, for me anyway. Some GCAM shots look better, and some Samsung shots look better to me. its like 50/50 for me.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Crops: stock and GCAM, all lenses:
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Yes, now it's much better than when I had S8 :)
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] PhilMorin:
This illustrates gcam strength much better Imo. Because when you zoom in the details are much clearer in most shots.

For someone that only post pics on social media, I think stock is probably better as I most of the time prefer stock's exposure when gcam feels a bit underexposed. But if you need to work on those pictures, print out etc. Gcam wins hands down.

I'm still confused at low light pics though as hdr+ gives very dark images (I don't use hdr++ because my kids move too much). On my s21 ultra, the gcam was able to properly expose the pictures with hdr+. Actually, even in the viewfinder it's exposed properly (which looks similar to stock jpg in terms of exposure) but the after the shot, it's super dark. I've also noticed that strangely, exposure time in those shots on gcam is longer and stock and with a super high (unsupported?) Iso of 10 000+ while stock has a quicker exposure and lower iso... And yet exposes better.

Could it be that there is a bug in the max iso values of hdr+ and gcam tries to use an iso not supported by the s23u and it uses something like iso100 instead?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
I think for very dynamic scenes the stock pro mode will be the best option
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] PhilMorin:
Actually for landscape shots I'm very fond of the 50mp format which gives access to so much more details than the 12mp binned file and yet compared to the 200mp, it doesn't really seem to lose any detail while having a much smaller size. But otherwise I usually just go point and shoot and really glad gcam is coming along so well. I'm also curious to see how much Samsung will improve the image quality in the coming months
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Fl1nt91:
Stock vs gcam

Honestly is incredible how Samsung doesn't develop a performing camera software on the top android flagship

P.s.

The attached files are compressed and differences are reduced, but still visible
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
My tests showed me that 50Mp from stock is worse than 12Mp from GCam
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] PhilMorin:
I'll have to try. Honestly when I tested it, I was only comparing details from stock 12mp and stock 50mp. It's lunch time here. I'll go out run some tests ;) thanks for the heads-up!
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Resized 200Mp, 50Mp and GCAM auto:
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] PhilMorin:
Thanks! I'm not home so can't compare on a proper monitor but at first glance, looking at the bricks behind the car, which is close to the middle of the pic, I feel like the 50mp does have more details than gcam, though I'm unsure if that's coming from Samsung's aggressive sharpening or just the extra pixels. Sort of feels the same looking at the roof etc. Honestly, still mighty impressive what gcam archives!
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] GroovyGeek:
Yes, for snaps stock is probably better for most people, who seem to prefer the over-saturated "vibrant" look with an S-shaped contrast curve. Not my cup of tea but not judging.

Regarding low light pics in hdr+ coming out dark - I have only seen this with the 10x module. It seems to occur in low-contrast + low-light. If you have a scene of sufficient contrast I don't see it, and I have yet to see it on the 1x and 3x modules. And I have seen it across 3 implementations - LMC, BSG, and ACG. Could be something in the HDR merge algorithm, but those settings are beyond my understanding.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] ajarosz:
Any idea why exposure compensation does not work at at? For the main cam it does not matter if it is set to -3 or +3. I use hdr++
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
if you talk about LMC mod, at first you need to enable it :)
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] GroovyGeek:
Where do we enable it?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] ajarosz:
Compensation is under 'General/Photo processing' menu, not 'General/LMC Tweaks'. Still needs enabling?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] ajarosz:
I read comments from people that are dissing GCAM and cannot get it. So, I have taken different approach. I have tried to make picture from GCAM looks somehow similar to the one from stock app. Then I just played a little bit more with sharpness and curve, to make them look somehow similar.

50MP from stock vs upscaled 50 MP from GCAM - 100% I have heavily overprocessed GCAM to make it look somehow similar to stock, but look at those. And I was not touching stock one at all, it is out of the camera. Stock photo is just a mess. Blotches of massive noise reduction, clarity to the sky, it is just bad.

I could place here as well stock RAW and ExpertRAW, but those came even worse, so didn't want to bully Samsung anymore.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] kevinmtz:
Having really great results with this one, thank you!
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Updated config to make more clear night shots, stock auto, GCam auto, GCam night:
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] 2000gatekeeper:
Howdy, sorry if this is already answered, I couldn't find it. Is there any way to disable restarts on lense switching for s23U running AGC 9.1.24 w/ config v 36? Have it disabled for switching to front cam, but wondering if possible for the other two as well. Thanks a bunch
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Without restarting your lense will work with wrong settings...
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] 2000gatekeeper:
Gotcha, ty for explaining!
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Stock vs GCam v36 my config Balanced-LDR in night mode:
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Have uploaded new release v37 for base s23:

Working GCAM for S23 Ultra

EDIT: I RECOMMEND FOLLOWING THIS POST TO INSTALL WORKING GCAM LMC version (remind to enable HDR++) Post in thread 'Working GCAM for S23 Ultra' https://xdaforums.com/t/working-gcam-for-s23-ultra.4550019/post-88407193 AGC 9.1 Post in thread...

xdaforums.com
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] KidJoe:
Sorry if I missed this, but at nearly 3000 posts in this thread there is a bit much... (Galaxy S23Ultra, AGC9.1.24_V12.0_samsung.apk)

When holding the phone in portrait mode, I see zoom controls for 1x and 2x along the bottom, and 1.0x, 10.3x, 3.0x, 0.6x, 1.0x along the side.

When i rotate the phone to landscape mode, those controls overlap. Is there a way for them to not overlap like that?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] chetszot:
Wow, I was waiting for it, thank you for your work :)

Unfortunately, the attachment with the v37 config seems not to be attached. Could you please double check and reattach it there :)?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Fixed :)
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Idk how to fix it
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] PhilMorin:
You either have to change the lens buttons to be embedded, or disable your phone's auto rotation.. Otherwise you're right, it's not really usable when in landscape mode or you have to switch lenses before going landscape
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Steerpike58:
Today I took 4 sample shots (S23+, 1.0x lens) while sitting in a restaurant, with strong back-light through a window. I took 4 shots; 2 stock, 2 AGC 8.8v8 v33 (MaxQ-HDR profile). For both sets, I turned HDR off and on (enhanced). The results for AGC with HDR+ on were pretty amazing, considering there's no real HDR function. Can you tell me if AGC is actually taking more frames in HDR+ mode, since it's obviously 'trying' to do something (takes much longer to take the shot).

(there are some light fixtures reflecting in the glass, overlaying some weird objects onto the sky!) (foreground was exposed pretty much the same in all four shots).
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
on base s23 only x1 doesn't support true HDR, other lenses support it.

HDR enhanced is deprecated when you need to get extra HDR (compared to HDR+) just to use night sight.

HDR is not about count of frames, HDR is about bracketing when you have different frames with different expositions. HDR+ and night sight can use 3-45 frames depending on the selected profile, but it's not related to HDR.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] TERRA Operative:
New user here.... I'm working through the 150 pages, but it's is a lot to catch up on..

I just installed the AGC 9.1 version on my S23U, but I'm wondering what the differences are between AGC 9.1 and AGC 8.8?

Also, what is different between AGC and LMC versions?

Which is considered the 'best' and latest version for the Samsung S23 Ultra?

Also, I noticed that using AGC 9.1, while providing a much nicer image quality (no more way excessive edge sharpening compared to the stock camera! :) ) that the images come out noticeably darker. Is there a setting I'm missing to fix that?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] maex-la:
Thank you!

The UI Description there does not match the UI of this release. Where can I find the right one?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] MilgeS:
Is there a chance that when we get OneUI 6.1 that the oversharpening will get fixed in stock, just like the S24 series, or is the lack of sharpening on the S24 due to the different hardware?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] chetszot:
It's the port of the latest Ultra AGC 9.1 configs. I read Ultra description and apply it to base S23 :)
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Steerpike58:
I see two ways to get 'Night Sight' - are they the same?

1) across the bottom, I can choose Night Sight, Portrait, Camera, Video, Modes

2) in 'Camera' mode (above), the settings drop-down presents 'More light' -> Night Sight.

Choosing 'Night Sight' in '1' above changes the 'settings' option a little, offering 'astrophotography' as an option.

Choosing 'Night Sight' in '2' above has no 'astrophotography' option.

I took two shots (1.0x lens) with the two possible 'night sight' methods;

1) choosing 'night sight' at the bottom (without 'astrophotography' enabled) resulted in an 'hourglass' presentation of sorts (indicating significant processing and/or number of frames)

2) choosing 'night sight' as an option within 'camera' setting takes a pretty quick shot. So they do appear to be different.

Choosing an option 'night sight' to get an improved daytime shot seems counter-intuitive; presumably it was developed originally to improve night shots, but is now being encouraged for daylight also.

My question about "HDR enhanced" is that the camera is taking a noticeably longer time to take the shot - it even presents a message and an 'hourglass' of sorts. What 'extra' processing is going on during that time to account for the extra time taken?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
You use community modded GCam with some limitation, it's why you need to use night sight for day shot and don't think that it's counter-intuitive. On pixels HDR+ has very good DR, but on non pixels you should use HDRe (already deprecated) or night sight to get the same DR.

In usual photo mode gcam makes frames to a buffer during when you look at the camera viewport and when you press "shot" it takes already made frames from this buffer. When you use night sight or HDRe, you start making frames only after pressed "shot" button
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Steerpike58:
So 'which' Night Sight should I be using? There are two different ways to 'get' Night Sight. They behave differently so I don't think they are two identical paths to the same end.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
When I talk about NS, it's about a separated mode "night sight", the second option is "auto night sight" which is a usual photo mode for good light and automatically switchs to night sight only in low light.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Steerpike58:
OK, so when I want 'HDR-like' processing during the day with my S23+ 1.0x lens, I should use the "Night Sight' mode as shown below rather than the HDR+ (enhanced) option within regular 'camera' mode, as that is being deprecated (I currently see identical results between the two).

'How it works' question. Obviously, using multiple frames provides more information for the final image, similar to a long-exposure shot. But just like with a long exposure shot, camera shake ought to be a big issue (with a hand-held shot), but somehow, using multiple frames is not resulting in any blur from camera movement (most of the time). So is there some processing going on that 'aligns' multiple frames, so they don't blur? I can imagine an algorithm that identifies a hard-edge in the picture, then uses that to align all the different frames so they are all 'on top of each other'. This ought to result in some degree of cropping at the edges. Is this how it's working?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] tomaskubec:
Thanks for all the work and keep us updated on the s24u - quality comparison from first hand experience especially from GCAM perspective would be great :)
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] arunkr:
Can't wait for your s24u builds..🤩..
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Maybe someone else will explain you such GCam basics, I already done it too many times :)
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Oswald Boelcke:
Hello and good morning, @Maxazarov19

I've removed the reference to Telegram from your above post. Regarding social media links please observe that as an exemption from the last bullet of rule no. 5 of the XDA Forum Rules, we grant only developers the privilege to share references to their social media in their own development threads and if thorough support is provided in the thread. These conditions obviously don't apply to you or your posts. Additional information is also available here:

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In future, please refrain from sharing social media links unless done in an opening post of your own development threads.

I'm going to check your post history and will remove similar links or delete the posts without further notification. Please read my message as a friendly warning to always follow all rules. Any further rule violation might lead to more severe consequences to your account including formal infractions or bans.

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[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] RedSkyRoad:
Confused about what is ASTRO mode and the ASTRO button
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Astro profile is focused on working with classic night mode and astro mode with a very wide dynamic range.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] RedSkyRoad:
How do I activate each one?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
When you switch to night mode in any profile you will see the option to force astro MODE in the bottom menu. but only astro profile allows you the full power of astro mode :)
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] RedSkyRoad:
So I need to select the Astro tile, then night mode then Astro button?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Steerpike58:
Fair enough; I'm searching for some detailed information online but not finding much. I did just find this: "

When you press the shutter button in the Google Camera app, HDR Plus captures a rapid burst of three to 15 pictures and combines them into one.

In low light scenes, HDR Plus takes a burst of shots with short exposure times, aligns them algorithmically, and then claims to replace each pixel with the average color at the position across these burst shots. Using short exposures reduces blur while averaging shots reduces noise."

so there's clearly an alignment step involved, and I'm curious to know more about how that is done. If there's a good resource to read up on the details, I'll go explore it. Thanks!

Update - the 'alignment' algorithm is the same as used in video stabilization.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Baker35:
Hello, you have a problem with the focus, when I press the LMC button it is in focus, on the AGC the focus is in the center.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Maxazarov19:
hi) So with focus it doesn’t work in 9.1 yet. ZSL will definitely fix it in the next version, we have to wait. But in NS(HDRE) it’s difficult for the developer to say this
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Baker35:
in agc 9.1 v12 javasabr v36, the focus works where I want it to.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Maxazarov19:
yes, I was wrong, it doesn’t work in 9.2. It works in 9.1 but only in ZSL.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] tkhquang:
Hello @Maxazarov19, thank you so much for the hard work but I have one question. Can I change the date time format offl the Film time Watermark? Like I want to change it to dd.mm.yyyy hh:mm, can I achieve that somehow?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Baker35:
Mazar, I compared your configuration to agc 9.1 and it works very well there, you can set the focus wherever you want, of course the focus doesn't work in the night mode but that's normal.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] RedSkyRoad:
So why did the the touch to focus stop working in 9.2?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] RaZoR No1:
Sorry for asking it here, but what is the best version with best config files for the normal S23?

I tried AGC 8.8 and 9.2, the pictures were nice, but the UI is broken (Is there a way to fix it?)
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
what is broken on 8.8?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] RaZoR No1:
The UI mostly

the camera buttons are pretty far in the middle and some of lower UI icons are not visible or half in the pictures.

I dont know if it because I lowered my display resolution, but so far, GCAM is the only app, which doesnt show correctly
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
I'm not clear... can you show a screenshot?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] RaZoR No1:
I dont know why, but I reinstalled it and know the 1x main cam is not working

Tried loading V33 and V37 configs, but none of them work.

I am on Android 14, the lateat available update for my S23
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
don't use landscape mode for gcam :) about not working x1... what is your apk package?
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] RaZoR No1:
I tried AGC8.8.224_V8.0_snap.apk and aweme, both have the same results.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Snap should not work, but aweme and Samsung should
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] RaZoR No1:
Samsung works but the UI is still a mess, even in portrait mode..

(the screenshot is on portrait mode)

The landscape mode feels even more wrong...
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] JavaSabr:
Then Idk, maybe it's related to your resolution or custom UI scaling
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] Steerpike58:
I've been reading quite a bit about how multiple frames are combined using very sophisticated algorithms to first align, and then combine, frames in a way that basically takes advantage of 'static' elements and at the same time eliminates moving objects. Many of the same algorithms are applied to video mode, to eliminate camera shake during video capture. Here's an informative document for anyone who's curious. https://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/hdrp/hasinoff-hdrplus-sigasia16-preprint.pdf . Some details are beyond my comprehension but there are some great examples and discussions. Anyone else have any references to share?

The one thing I'm still puzzled about, and can't find any discussion of, is how are the edges (border) of the photo handled? Logically, if you are aligning multiple sequential hand-held frames, then you would need to do a crop of the final image to eliminate image content that extends beyond the common border. But I'm not seeing any noticeable image cropping when comparing various samples, nor degradation around the edges.
[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] PhilMorin:
It works, but now you actually have to disable focus tracking in the settings