In recent days, Samsung has been involved in a controversy about the veracity of the photographs of the Moon captured by its flagships. A Reddit user posted photos taken of a computer screen with a very blurry image of the Moon, and surprisingly, the screenshot from Samsung’s phone produced a much sharper image, with details that didn’t exist in the original image.
Now, Samsung has responded to the controversy by issuing a statement to Tom’s Guide. The Korean brand insists that it is not superimposing any images on the final snapshot of the Moon: When a user takes a photo of the Moon, the AI-based scene optimization technology recognizes the Moon as the main object and takes several shots to multi-frame compositing, after which the AI enhances image quality details and colors. Does not apply any image overlays to the photo. Samsung also notes in its statement that users can turn off Scene Optimizer if they don’t want these “detail improvements” for the Moon. The manufacturer notes that these additional details in the AI-enabled snapshots of the Moon are, in fact, “detail enhancements.” However, Reddit’s user experiment suggests that phones are generating details out of thin air, rather than enhancing captured elements, so it remains unclear what processing Samsung is applying.
