Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra has impressed us time and time again with its epic photo and video skills. It shoots some of the best images you can get from a phone in almost any conditions, while its big, vibrant display males lining up your shots a breeze. But even though I’ve been capturing photos with it for months, I recently stumbled on a little hidden tool that I didn’t notice when I first started using the phone. But now that I’ve found it, I use it all the time. It’s all about creating cool, cinematic filters for your photos. 

The tool, that Samsung sometimes calls My Filters, essentially lets you steal the color tones from one image and apply it to another. Say you like the warm orangey hues on a photo from a summertime trip to Italy. Simply load that photo up and it becomes a filter you can apply to other images, either while you’re taking a photo or when you edit photos from your gallery later. It’s baked into the heart of the camera experience and it’s easy to use. Here’s how you can do it yourself. 

Read More: Best Camera Phone to Buy in 2025

First, find the reference photos you want to use to create your filters. Maybe a night-time city scene with cool blue tones, or perhaps you’re looking for more dreamy, warm colors for a summer vibe. Whatever you’re after, you need to collect some images (either of your own, or any you’ve found online) and save them to your phone’s gallery. 

Next, open the camera app. In the top left or right corner (depending on the orientation you’re holding your phone) you’ll see an icon that looks like three overlapping circles. This is the filter mode. Tap it to view the various built-in filters, and you’ll notice there’s a tile with a plus symbol just to the left of the built-in filters. Select this to bring up your gallery, and you’ll be invited to select a picture to use as a filter. 

Choose one of your reference images, tap Create and your phone will do the rest. It analyzes the colors and contrast in the image, and then applies a filter that’s based on your reference. You’ll then see a live preview of what the effect will look like. You can rename the filter if you’d like, and then tap Done to save it.

When you take an image, that preset will be applied to the new photo. The filter also saves that effect to your phone, so you can now open any image in your gallery, press the edit button, tap the Filters button and then tap your new filter to load up the effect.

When you apply it, you can also adjust the strength of the effect, along with adjustments like contrast and color temperature. I also love that there’s an option to add film grain, which can help simulate the grain you’d see in analog photography to give your images that old-school vibe Instagram seems to be into these days.

The ability to create a custom filter is a great tool to play around with, and I’ve really enjoyed saving a variety of different images to my phone in order to use as a basis for other filters. It’s not perfect though — the effects can be very subtle. It’s not really achieving an accurate match for your source image — it’s more like it’s taking inspiration from it. I’d like Samsung to amp up the effect even more in future updates, giving us the option to tone it down a bit if it’s too strong. 

I could absolutely imagine loading up example photos taken with classic film stocks like Kodak Gold, Portra 160 or Fujifilm Velvia and creating a set of filters that mimic those analogue films. One of the joys of shooting on Fujifilm’s digital cameras, like the X100VI, is the myriad of film emulation options you can achieve. This tool feels like a close approximation for Galaxy S25 owners.

I really enjoy anything like this that allows photographers like myself to play around with the look of our image while still maintaining an authentic photo, rather than altering things with generative AI. Apple’s Photographic Styles allows you to create similar color toning effects, but Samsung’s tool makes things that bit easier by letting you create looks based off reference images. 

The tool was introduced on the S25 range, including the base models and the S25 Ultra. It also features on the fancy new S25 Edge. You can also find the tool on Samsung’s much cheaper Galaxy A series, and it’s been made available as a software update on older Galaxy phones, including the Galaxy S22 range. Samsung hasn’t made it clear exactly which phones support the tool, but if you own a Galaxy phone that was released over the past few years, it’s worth seeing if it’s available.

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.

Connections: Sports Edition has a killer purple category today. Even after I read the category name, it took me forever to think of what the third answer stood for. (We explain it below.) Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it 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: Yer outta here!

Green group hint: Move towards a TD.

Blue group hint: They guard the net.

Purple group hint: Hockey teams.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Throw out of a game.

Green group: Football running plays.

Blue group: Hall of Fame hockey goaltenders.

Purple group: First three letters of NHL team names.

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 throw out of a game. The four answers are boot, chase, eject and toss.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is football running plays. The four answers are counter, dive, draw and reverse.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is Hall of Fame hockey goaltenders. The four answers are Hasek, Luongo, Parent and Roy.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is first three letters of NHL team names. The four answers are fly, map, pan and pen. (Flyers, Maple Leafs, Panthers and Penguins.)

Toughest Connections: Sports Edition categories

The Connections: Sports Edition puzzle can be tough, but it really depends on which sports you know the most about. My husband aces anything having to do with Formula 1, my best friend is a hockey buff, and I can answer any question about Minnesota teams.

That said, it’s hard to pick the toughest Connections categories, but here are some I found exceptionally mind-blowing recently.

#1: Series A Clubs, Jan. 11. Answers: Atalanta, Juventus, Lazio, Roma.

#2: WNBA MVPs, Jan. 21. Answers: Catchings, Delle Donne, Fowles and Stewart.

#3: Premier League team nicknames, Jan. 17. Answers: Bees, Cherries, Foxes and Hammers.

#4: Homophones of NBA player names, Jan. 26. Answers: Barns, Connect, Heart and Hero.

Summer is approaching fast, and if you plan on flying during this travel season, staying on top of your flight status is imperative. Airports can be hectic during peak travel times, and changes can happen at any moment. Some of those changes are easy to manage, while others restrict your time and could potentially cause you to miss your flight or connection flights if you’re not careful.

Luckily, it’s never been easier to get up-to-date information about your flight. For starters, your airline probably has an app, and if not, you can check their website. If you’re in a hurry, you can Google the flight number. Or you can just use your iPhone’s built-in flight tracker that’s sneakily tucked away.

That’s right: your iPhone has a flight tracker that you may have never known about. It’s there for when it’s needed. Below, we’ll show you have to access it in not one, but two places, so you never have to go hunting for your flight info elsewhere again. 

For more, don’t miss what the new JetBlue and United Airlines partnership means for your next trip.

How to track your flight via iMessage

Before we start, there are a few prerequisites you must meet:

• Make sure iMessage is enabled (it doesn’t work with SMS/MMS).
• You’ll need your flight number somewhere in your text messages, whether you’ve sent that information to someone (even yourself) or it’s been sent to you.
• The flight number must be sent in this format: [Airline] [Flight number], for example, American Airlines 9707.

Launch the native Messages app on your iPhone and open the text message thread that contains your flight information. You’ll know the flight tracker feature works when the text with the flight information appears underlined, which means it’s actionable and you can tap on it. 

If your flight is still several months away or it’s already passed, you might see a message that says, «Flight information unavailable.» You might also see another flight that’s not yours because airlines recycle flight numbers.

You can check your flight status from Spotlight Search, too

If getting your flight information from Messages wasn’t easy enough, you can also grab the details right from your iPhone’s home screen by swiping down and adding your flight number into Spotlight Search. Even better, this works with Spotlight Search on your Mac computer, too. 

How to access the hidden flight tracker

Although the airline name/flight number format highlighted above is the best way to go, there are other texting options that will lead you to the same result. So let’s say we stick with American Airlines 9707, other options that may bring up the flight tracker include:

• AmericanAirlines9707 (no spaces)
• AmericanAirlines 9707 (only one space)
• AA9707 (airline name is abbreviated and no space)
• AA 9707 (abbreviated and space)

I would suggest you keep the airline name spelled out completely and add a space between the two pieces of information — like in the previous section — because for some airlines, these alternative options may not work.

Real-time flight tracking

Once everything is set, tap on the flight information in your text messages. If the feature works correctly, you should see the following two options appear in a quick-action menu:

• Preview Flight: View the flight’s details. Tap this to view more information about the flight.
• Copy Flight Code: Copy the flight code to your clipboard (in case you want to send your flight details to someone else via text or email).

If you select Preview Flight, at the top of the window, you’ll see the best part of this feature: a real-time flight tracker map. A line will connect the two destinations, and a tiny airplane will move between them, indicating where the flight is at that exact moment.

Underneath the map, you’ll see important flight information:

• Airline name and flight number
• Flight status (arriving on time, delayed, canceled, etc.)
• Terminal and gate numbers (for arrival and departure)
• Arrival and departure time
• Flight duration
• Baggage claim (the number of the baggage carousel)

If you swipe left on the bottom half of the flight tracker, you can switch between flights, but only if there’s a return flight.

For more travel tips, don’t miss our test on whether AI can help you fly more sustainably.