One UI 8 Gallery app brings improvements to background blur

Since Samsung’s Android 16-based One UI 8.0 leaked, and since the brand released it in the beta stage to the Galaxy S25 series, people have been scouring it for changes. We already reported many new features, performance improvements, and bug fixes it offers, and now, we have come across two new enhancements to the Samsung Gallery app's photo editor.

On X, @Theordysm reports that in the photo editor of the Samsung Gallery app that comes with One UI 8.0, there are two new enhancements. First, the transitions between various background blur levels appear smoother. Second, it now lets you compare the original and the blurred image by pressing and holding the image. Let’s take a deeper look at these changes.

On Samsung smartphones, when you take a photo using the Samsung Camera app’s Portrait mode, and then go to the Samsung Gallery app to edit the picture, it gives you the ‘Background Effect‘ option, where you can adjust the background’s blurriness level. 

In One UI 7, when you adjusted the background blur level, the transition between various levels was not smooth. That’s not the case anymore. In One UI 8, when you scroll the slider, the transition between various levels looks much smoother.

Once you edit the background blur level, One UI 8.0 allows you to compare it with the original/unedited photo by pressing and holding the image, which is a very useful feature and one that One UI 7 didn't offer.

As for when Samsung will release One UI 8.0 to other devices, the brand recently created One UI 8.0 beta program pages for the Galaxy S22 and the Galaxy S23 series. It suggests that these lineups will get the update soon. Unfortunately, there's no information about when the brand will offer it to other devices.