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 Saturday, Feb. 28

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Feb. 28.

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? As is usual for Saturday, it’s pretty long, and should take you longer than the normal Mini. A bunch of three-initial terms are used in this one. 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: Rock’s ___ Leppard
Answer: DEF

4A clue: Cry a river
Answer: SOB

7A clue: Clean Air Act org.
Answer: EPA

8A clue: Org. that pays the Bills?
Answer: NFL

9A clue: Nintendo console with motion sensors
Answer: WII

10A clue: ___-quoted (frequently said)
Answer: OFT

11A clue: With 13-Across, narrow gap between the underside of a house and the ground
Answer: CRAWL

13A clue: See 11-Across
Answer: SPACE

14A clue: Young lady
Answer: GAL

15A clue: Ooh and ___
Answer: AAH

17A clue: Sports org. for Scottie Scheffler
Answer: PGA

18A clue: «Hey, just an F.Y.I. …,» informally
Answer: PSA

19A clue: When doubled, nickname for singer Swift
Answer: TAY

20A clue: Socially timid
Answer: SHY

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Morning moisture
Answer: DEW

2D clue: «Game of Thrones» or Homer’s «Odyssey»
Answer: EPICSAGA

3D clue: Good sportsmanship
Answer: FAIRPLAY

4D clue: White mountain toppers
Answer: SNOWCAPS

5D clue: Unrestrained, as a dog at a park
Answer: OFFLEASH

6D clue: Sandwich that might be served «triple-decker»
Answer: BLT

12D clue: Common battery type
Answer: AA

14D clue: Chat___
Answer: GPT

16D clue: It’s for horses, in a classic joke punchline
Answer: HAY

Technologies

Ultrahuman Ring Pro Brings Better Battery Life, More Action and Analysis

The company’s new flagship smart ring stores more data, too. But that doesn’t really help Americans.

Sick of your smart ring’s battery not holding up? Ultrahuman’s new $479 Ring Pro smart ring, unveiled on Friday, offers up to 15 days of battery life on a single charge. The Ring Pro joins the company’s $349 Ring Air, which boosts health tracking, thanks to longer battery life, increased data storage, improved speed and accuracy and a new heart-rate sensing architecture. The ring works in conjunction with the latest Pro charging case.

Ultrahuman also launched its Jade AI, which can act as an agent based on analysis of current and historical health data. Jade can synthesize data from across the company’s products and is compatible with its Rings.

«With industry-leading hardware paired with Jade biointelligence AI, users can now take real-time actionable interventions towards their health than ever before,» said Mohit Kumar, CEO of Ultrahuman.

No US sales

That hardware isn’t available in the US, though, thanks to the ongoing ban on Ultrahuman’s Rings sales here, stemming from a patent dispute with its competitor, Oura Ring. It’s available for preorder now everywhere else and is slated to ship in March. Jade’s available globally.

Ultrahuman says the Ring Pro boosts battery life to about 15 days in Chill mode — up to 12 days in Turbo — compared to a maximum of six days for the Air. The Pro charger’s battery stores enough for another 45 days, which you top off with Qi-compatible wireless charging. In addition, the case incorporates locator technology via the app and a speaker, as well as usability features such as haptic notifications and a power LED.

The ring can also retain up to 250 days of data versus less than a week for the cheaper model. Ultrahuman redesigned the heart-rate sensor for better signal quality. An upgraded processor improves the accuracy of the local machine learning and overall speed.

It’s offered in gold, silver, black and titanium finishes, with available sizes ranging from 5 to 14.

Jade’s Deep Research Mode is the cross-ecosystem analysis feature, which aggregates data from Ring and Blood Vision and the company’s subscription services, Home and M1 CGM, to provide historical trends, offer current recommendations and flag potential issues, as well as trigger activities such as A-fib detection. Ultrahuman plans to expand its capabilities to include health-adjacent activities, such as ordering food.

Some new apps are also available for the company’s PowerPlug add-on platform, including capabilities such as tracking GLP-1 effects, snoring and respiratory analysis and migraine management tools.