Find out how to adjust or add blur in photos on One UI 8.5

One UI 8.5 changes how you adjust or add blur in photos

There is only one method for adjusting blur in portrait photos and adding blur to regular photos in One UI 8.5, and we explain how it works.

Abhijeet Mishra

Reading time: 2 minutes

Samsung has a long-standing habit of reworking how certain things are done in One UI, some more often than others. You could argue that these changes can make common tasks easier for users. Or you could just as easily say Samsung can’t quite make up its mind.

Either way, some features do end up moving around more than most. With One UI 8.5, one such change affects how you adjust the background blur effect and blur intensity on photos captured using the camera’s Portrait mode, or when adding blur to an existing photo that wasn’t originally taken in Portrait mode.

More specifically, Samsung has removed one of the two ways you could do that in One UI 8.

Before One UI 6.1, adjusting blur was straightforward. Open any portrait photo in the Gallery app, and a Change background effect button would appear at the bottom of the screen, letting you tweak blur intensity or switch between different blur styles.

Then Samsung tucked that button away in a less obvious place. To access it, you had to swipe up on a photo to reveal additional options, including the background effect controls.

With One UI 7.0, Samsung introduced a second and more sensible method. You could tap the edit button on a photo and adjust background blur from within the standard editing interface, right alongside all the other photo editing tools available on Galaxy smartphones.

Blur options are located in the photo editor on One UI 8.5

With One UI 8.5, Samsung has decided that this should be the only way.

Swiping up on a photo still reveals options like Remaster, Live effect, and Erase reflections. But background blur is no longer among them. If you’ve been wondering why you can no longer adjust blur on your photos, chances are you’re just looking in the wrong place.

To adjust blur on a portrait photo, open the image, tap the pencil icon to enter editing mode, and then tap the second icon in the bottom row (next to the colorful Galaxy AI button) to access the background blur controls.

Adjusting blur on portrait photos

To add blur to a regular image, tap the last icon in the editor’s bottom row and select Background blur. As before, this option only appears for photos that include people or animals, and you only get a standard blur effect. For images with other subjects, the background blur option will be missing.

Adding blur to regular photos

Abhijeet Mishra - Editor-in-Chief

[email protected]

First Samsung device: SGH-D500

Abhijeet's writing career started with guides for custom firmware for Samsung devices (including the original Galaxy S), and he moved to SamMobile in mid-2013 and worked up the ranks to Editor-in-chief. In addition to phones and mobile devices, his interests include gaming on both PC and console, PC hardware, and spending countless hours on YouTube watching videos on tech, movies, games, politics, and internet dramas.

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