Technologies

Galaxy S23 Phones Get Adobe’s Pro-Level Lightroom Photo Editing Tool

Exclusive: If you’re an enthusiast shooting with the newest Samsung smartphones, Adobe’s software will be the default way to handle their raw photos.

This story is part of Samsung Event, CNET’s collection of news, tips and advice around Samsung’s most popular products.

Adobe and Samsung have banded together to ease the difficulties of advanced smartphone photography on Samsung’s new Galaxy S23, S23 Plus and S23 Ultra phones. The smartphones will exclusively use Adobe’s Lightroom software to handle the raw-format photos that pros and enthusiasts prefer.

Most of us are fine with plain old JPEG and HEIC, the formats that phones use to store photos. But raw photos, stored in the Digital Negative format, DNG, that Adobe invented, offer higher image quality and more editing flexibility when you want to fiddle with exposure, color balance, sharpening and other factors.

The problem is that raw files also are a pain to handle, which is why the Samsung-Adobe partnership — revealed exclusively to CNET — is notable. Once you take a photo using Samsung’s Expert Raw camera app, you can open them directly in Lightroom with one tap, the companies said.

Although Lightroom won’t be preinstalled on the phones, a prompt will encourage people to install it, after which Lightroom will be the default raw photo editor, Adobe photography marketing chief Stephen Baloglu said. The phone version of Lightroom can be used for free, but a $10 per month subscription opens up some premium features and synchronizes photos with laptops. The Samsung phones will come with a two-month free Lightroom trial.

The partnership shows the growing maturity of advanced smartphone photography. The first smartphones had cameras that were useful but not impressive, but now they’re good enough to replace traditional cameras for most people, and camera technology is a top selling point for smartphones. That’s why the Galaxy S23 Ultra comes with a 200-megapixel sensor, and why shooting raw photos has become important for making the most of pocketable hardware.

Smoothing the bumps is important to unlocking that power. When shooting raw, there are plenty of difficulties. For example, even though Google helped pioneer the technology by adding DNG format support to Android years ago, the Google Photos app warns you of «limited raw support» if you try to edit.

Lightroom can correct optical problems like distortion with specific lenses, and Adobe worked with Samsung to offer lens corrections for all the front and back Galaxy S23 lenses, Baloglu said. Adobe has done that in the past with earlier Samsung phones, too, as well as iPhones and other smartphones.

Adobe’s Lightroom is geared in particular for raw photos. On traditional high-end cameras like DSLRs and mirrorless models, that means capturing the data straight from the image sensor without all the processing that’s required to «bake» it into a compact, easily shared JPEG.

On phones, though, image sensors are smaller and image quality isn’t as good. Smartphones compensate with computational photography techniques that merge multiple frames into one photo. That can dramatically improve a photo’s dynamic range — the span of bright and dark elements in a scene — to boost image quality.

Newer phones from Google, Apple, Samsung and others come with computational raw technology that performs some of this processing but that produces a DNG. That balances the flexibility of raw photos with the power of computational photography.

One of the new tricks on Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra is using AI technology to reconstruct fine details in photos taken at the full 200 megapixel resolution. That’s necessary because the phone’s Isocell HP2 sensor uses pixel binning technology that groups pixels into 4×4 groupings that only capture only a single color each. The 16-pixel groups are good for low-light photos but complicate matters at high resolution.

«We’re excited to see the continuous innovation from Samsung to deliver impressive photography experiences,» Baloglu said.

Because Lightroom synchronizes photos, Samsung S23 phone owners can get their raw shots on Samsung’s new Galaxy Book 3 Ultra and Pro laptops — or for that matter, on any Mac or Windows PC. On the new Samsung PCs, though, Lightroom will come with a two-month free Lightroom subscription offer.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Friday, Dec. 26

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Dec. 26.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Some of the clues are tough today — I thought maybe 1-Across was referring to the Grinch, or even Oscar the Grouch, but was I ever wrong! Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Furry and green, say
Answer: MOSSY

6A clue: State known for its potatoes
Answer: IDAHO

7A clue: Like a faithful friend
Answer: LOYAL

8A clue: Had a beverage
Answer: DRANK

9A clue: Pronoun frequently paired with «her»
Answer: SHE

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Not spicy, as salsa
Answer: MILD

2D clue: Reasons for wrinkled noses
Answer: ODORS

3D clue: Words from a doctor checking your tonsils
Answer: SAYAH

4D clue: Comedian Gillis
Answer: SHANE

5D clue: Part of an egg used to make hollandaise sauce
Answer: YOLK

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Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Dec. 26, #459

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Dec. 26, No. 459.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a tough one. That purple category once again has players looking for a different, but related, hidden word in four of the clues. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Big Apple jock.

Green group hint: College football fun.

Blue group hint: On the road.

Purple group hint: Hunt down a word in other words.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: A New York athlete.

Green group: Bowl games.

Blue group: Associated with a team road trip.

Purple group: Ends in a movement verb.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is a New York athlete. The four answers are Islander, Net, Ranger and Yankee.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is bowl games. The four answers are Alamo, Gator, Liberty and Pinstripe.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is associated with a team road trip. The four answers are bus, flight, hotel and visiting locker room.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ends in a movement verb. The four answers are foxtrot (trot), newsprint (sprint), terrace (race) and thunderbolt (bolt).

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Dec. 26, #929

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Dec. 26 #929

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is full of fun pop-culture references. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Golden state cliches.

Green group hint: Funny films.

Blue group hint: Rock on.

Purple group hint: Not white.