Galaxy S23 camera Portrait mode is more versatile after June update

Samsung started rolling out the June 2023 update for the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+, and Galaxy S23 Ultra a few days back. It's the largest update the Galaxy S23 lineup has received since it hit retail shelves earlier this year and brings a number of camera-related improvements, including fixes for camera autofocus issues and enhanced Night mode processing.

But, for some people, the most notable addition to the Galaxy S23 lineup with this month's update will probably be the new 2x magnification option in the camera's Portrait mode. Before this update, the Galaxy S23, S23+, and S23 Ultra only let you capture Portrait shots at 1x and 3x magnification, which some users were not happy about.

Samsung adds 2x zoom to the camera's Portrait mode

Thankfully, the rumors of Samsung testing a 2x zoom option for the Portrait mode were true. The 2x Portrait mode seemingly uses 50MP crops from the 200MP camera on the S23 Ultra and 12MP crops from the 50MP sensor on the S23 and S23+, so the quality should be consistent whether you're shooting at 1x, 2x, or 3x zoom, though the Galaxy S23 Ultra will likely offer slightly better quality as it has a higher number of megapixels to play with.

It remains to be seen if the 2x option for Portrait mode will also come to the Galaxy S22 series. While the Galaxy S22 Ultra uses a 108MP main camera instead of a 200MP camera, the rest of the camera hardware is pretty similar on both the Galaxy S22 and S23 lineups, so Samsung doesn't exactly have any technical reason to keep it exclusive to the latter.

For now, Galaxy S23 owners who haven't already updated to the June firmware can try to download it from their phone's Settings » Software update menu or take the help of our firmware archive. The update is available in some Asian countries and in Europe at the time of this writing, but we expect the rollout to reach more markets in the next few days.