Experts Talk Collaborating on the Galaxy S22 Series’ Expert RAW App – Samsung Global Newsroom

When it comes to wanting professional precision and everyday ease, the Galaxy S22 is Samsung’s most powerful tool yet for snapping stunning shots every time. That’s thanks in part to the smartphone’s unique Expert RAW app. Compatible with the Galaxy S22 series and the Galaxy S21 Ultra,¹ Expert RAW is a comprehensive suite of in-camera editing tools that turn the camera in your pocket into a DSLR-like experience. That means having more creative control over your content.

Expert RAW, like many other great inventions was created by a team effort. It was driven by the Galaxy users and Samsung experts. To learn more about the Expert RAW experience, Samsung Newsroom spoke with the experts at Samsung Research² who collaborated on the app.

Read on to see what Hamid Sheikh, Head of the Intelligent Imaging Team at Samsung Research America’s (SRA) Mobile Processor Innovation (MPI) Lab, and Girish Kulkarni, Head of the Camera Solutions Group at the Samsung R&D Institute India-Bangalore (SRI-B), had to say about this innovative camera collaboration.

Q: What does the Expert RAW app do? Q: What does Expert RAW app do?

Hamid: Expert RAW really gives users the ability to take full control of their mobile photography experience much like a professional photographer would. The app captures much more comprehensive data for each image, which can be used to both improve photos and artistically enhance them with editing software like Adobe Lightroom — the go-to app for professional photographers.

To improve your camera experience, Adobe worked with us to closely couple Expert Raw with Lightroom. This allows photographers to have complete control of their creativity. For novice photographers, you can use automatic camera control settings and Lightroom-specific default values. The tight integration between the apps creates an enjoyable experience in both instances.

Girish: Expert RAW is an epic leap forward for photography. This basically puts a professional studio within your reach. Whether you are a pro photographer or you’re just a user who wants to capture amazing content, anyone can take full advantage of the Galaxy S22’s pro-grade camera with Expert RAW. It captures high-quality, high dynamic range pictures in the multi-frame RAW format that enables precise post-capture editing and professional results.

Expert RAW allows users to capture more detail in one picture, from the darkest details to the brightest highlights. It also drastically reduces noise and increases sharpness and detail. You can also choose the settings you wish to apply for ISO, shutter speed and white balance. Finally, because both JPEG and DNG files are saved when shooting, you can hop right into the Adobe Lightroom app on your smartphone or PC and edit with ease.

Q: What was the original inspiration for Expert RAW?

Hamid: Samsung camera technologies have always relied on sophisticated computational photography algorithms to produce the best picture quality. However, the standard camera app makes many decisions about how the image will be rendered in terms of color, tone, detail and noise. The user has very limited say in these decisions.

Our inspiration came from the confluence of user experience limitations and the leaps in computational and AI capabilities of today’s mobile processors. Our question was “How can the user experience be more inspirational?” We were inspired by the enthusiast and expert photographers who longed for a simpler mobile experience that didn’t compromise the creativity of DSLRs and post-capture editing. Expert RAW was born out of a desire to transform that inspiration into reality.

Girish: As we heard the input of professional photographers who were mostly utilizing DSLR cameras, they wanted to achieve a pro-grade experience with smartphones. Our research showed that most users are passionate about learning more about Samsung’s professional-grade camera features.

The more we talked to professional and amateur photographers, the more we understood their needs in terms of RAW image capturing, camera controls, the post-editing experience, creative capabilities and more. We set out to design a professional-grade RAW image capturing experience that would allow every photographer to combine their camera controls with their creativity and create professionally-looking images.

Q: What makes Expert RAW such an important release for mobile photography in general?

Hamid: The camera experience is one of the most important experiences that a user has with his or her smartphone. Samsung has been at the cutting edge of camera quality, and the gap between consumers and professional/enthusiast photographers has always been a tempting one to bridge.

I think with the release of Expert RAW, users will find that their photography experience will take a quantum leap in terms of creative control and artistic expression. This new feature allows users to personalize the camera according to their preferences, and not what other engineers have chosen. I believe this will make photography more enjoyable for more people.

Girish: As an app, this platform has simplified the RAW capturing process with precise camera and lens controls and post-editing with Adobe Lightroom. It’s for every user who is willing to go beyond — to unleash the true power of an Expert RAW camera, and explore their creative side.

Q: What role did the MPI Lab play in Expert RAW’s development?

Hamid: Any time we are creating a brand-new user experience, we have to consider and overcome many tough engineering challenges. Expert RAW was developed by the MPI Lab. We knew that it would be a challenging challenge.

We developed a new computational photography pipeline which can create both DNG and JPEG files. Developing a complex computational photography pipeline from scratch was not easy. It was difficult to develop a complex computational photography pipeline from scratch without the support of a mature, older technology platform. But our team successfully developed this new, AI-based 3DISP technology to produce raw data that looks very natural when users load it in editing apps like Adobe Lightroom.

Q: What role did SRI-B play in Expert RAW’s development? What were the team’s main areas of focus?

Girish: Expert RAW was a complex R&D project, and SRI-B’s role was to think in terms of end-to-end for the best consumer experience. It required multi-domain knowledge and collaboration between multiple teams.

SRIB has strong expertise groups in multiple domains. We formed a taskforce of skilled experts. All of them worked as one team in SRI-B, but also collaborated with larger teams of experts located at the MPI Lab and Korea.

SRI-B’s multi-domain knowledge and close collaboration with key stakeholders allowed it to continuously improve Expert RAW’s product experience, pipeline, etc.

Q: Could you offer more details on your collaboration with one another?

Hamid: The MPI Lab has been working with SRI-B throughout our entire history at Samsung. SRI-B provided its incredible skillsets and resources to the development of software technologies as well as the key AI blocks required for Expert RAW. SRI-B also owned Expert RAW’s UI component and contributed many innovative points to the Expert RAW experience. It is always a pleasure to work with them.

Girish: The MPI Lab has world-class expertise in computational imaging domain, and has a proven record of developing successful IPs for Samsung flagship products. That expertise was one of the key requirements for Expert RAW’s development. The MPI Lab came up with the multi-frame pipeline building blocks implementation, which helped SRI-B integrate and enhance the same for the end-to-end architecture and pipeline.

Expert RAW had one of its major goals: to achieve the highest quality image in all lighting conditions. This requires tuning the multi-frame processing pipeline. MPI’s strong expertise in this area helped us continuously improve image quality before the commercial launch. In summary, MPI’s expertise in computational imaging and SRI-B’s breadth of knowledge in multiple subdomains helped SRI-B prepare Expert RAW’s end-to-end experience for commercial launch.

SRI-B and the MPI Lab used their 12-hour time zone difference effectively to plan and collaborate on Expert RAW. SRI-B was MPI’s evening, and vice versa. It helped to have 24/7 development to finish this complex feature in record time. Samsung has a culture of respectful collaboration that allows for international R&D centres to collaborate. We love working with MPI Lab.

Q: How do the MPI Lab and SRI-B plan to build on this collaboration to develop even more innovative camera technologies?

Hamid: Our journey with the new RAW camera experience is just beginning. It is exciting to see what improvements we could make. Expert RAW is a great experience because the photographer is always front and center. We’ll preserve that as we actively look into the experiences of different users and continuously implement improvements to make Expert RAW even better than before.

Girish: The MPI Lab and SRI-B have been working together for the last few years developing the world’s best night mode for Samsung flagship smartphones. This collaboration helped lead us to the success story that is Expert RAW on the Galaxy S22. This collaboration has led to the success story that is Expert RAW on the Galaxy S[*********************************************************************************************]. We are excited to keep this momentum going for our next product.

In the future, we would like to continuously enhance Expert RAW with a focus on creating a new ecosystem for pro photography that fully utilizes pro-grade camera capabilities.

Collaborating for Creativity

Features such as Expert RAW highlight Samsung’s dedication to creating tools that allow users to express their creativity.

Going forward, the company will continue to strengthen collaborations that leverage the knowledge and capabilities of its world-class network of R&D centers. This will enable the creation of new technologies to transform our lives, work, and life.

¹ Expert RAW must be downloaded separately from the Galaxy Store, for free, before use. Expert RAW app availability is currently limited to the Galaxy S21 Ultra and S22 series. Samsung Members notified Expert RAW will become available on Galaxy Z Fold3 in April 2022 and Galaxy S20 Ultra, Galaxy Note20 Ultra and Galaxy Z Fold2 later this year.

² Samsung Electronics’ advanced R&D hub, which leads the development of future technologies for its Device eXperience division