Samsung Architecture Photography: Straight Lines and Light

Shoot a skyscraper with your phone pointed upwards and you'll notice its walls tilting away from you, as if the entire building is falling over. The Galaxy phone's camera app can correct this both in advance and in post-production.

Distorted edges when you shoot with the ultra-wide camera and reflections on glass façades are also problems with known causes.

Settings by situation

According to Samsung’s guide for shooting in Pro mode, the moment you adjust shutter speed, ISO cannot remain on Auto, as exposure is dependent on the combination of the two.

For the shots in the blue hour row, you’ll probably want to rest your phone on a ledge or invest in a tiny tripod since 1/15s isn’t generally fast enough for sharp handheld shots.

The building leans backwards

This effect occurs when you tilt your phone up to take a picture. Since the top of the building is further away than the bottom of the building, it appears smaller in the picture and the lines on the building appear to slant inward. This happens with all cameras and is not a defect.

1. 1

   Turn on the level

   Make sure your composition guide (aka Grid lines in versions of One UI prior to 7) is turned on in Camera settings. Handy tip: on One UI 7 and above, you’ll get grid lines plus a level! Keep the walls parallel to the vertical grid lines (see our grid lines guide for where the switch is on your phone).

2. 2

   Hold the phone upright

   Hold your phone level, and don’t worry if it means you won’t initially get the entire building in the frame.

3. 3

   Step back or go wider

   Step back until you can capture the whole building (or switch to 0.6x, but make sure you’re still holding the phone level). You should end up with the building occupying the top half of the image and some pavement in the bottom half.

4. 4

   Leave room to correct

   Frame wider than you’d like. Any corrections you apply to the perspective will effectively result in a zoomed in (aka cropped) version of the original image, so you want to have some pixels to spare!

5. 5

   Crop the empty foreground later

   Remove any excess pavement in an image editor. Because you held the phone level, you shouldn’t have to worry about correcting the verticals.

If stepping back isn’t possible for whatever reason, take the tilted photo and try to straighten it afterwards, as the free image-editing app Snapseed has a very handy Perspective tool which, according to 9to5Google’s report on Snapseed 4.0, is specifically intended to straighten out building and horizon lines that aren’t quite straight. Subtle changes don’t look too bad but bigger changes result in the top of the building being stretched. Our perspective guide covers when to use a deliberate tilt instead.

Straight lines bend near the edges

Expect some degree of line stretching and curving as objects approach the corners of the frame with wide-angle lenses. Samsung's S26 documentation even notes this could lead to some distortion in wide-angle shots. You're most likely to notice this indoors at 0.6x, as lines and edges (think door frames and ceiling lines) find themselves closer to the perimeter of the image.

• Samsung’s Camera Assistant app has a Distortion correction setting, which Samsung describes as automatically correcting bending or bowing of lines due to lens distortion and/or perspective distortion. Checked in November 2026 on a Galaxy S25 Ultra with One UI 9, it’s in the Photos section. The Camera Assistant guide has a list of compatible phones.
• Avoid placing elements that should be straight (walls, doors, furniture, etc.) right on the edge of an ultrawide shot, and try to keep your phone parallel to the main wall you’re facing.
• If you can, opt for the 1x lens rather than the 0.6x when taking interior shots, as it introduces less corner stretching.

Glass reflects you and every streetlight

Position yourself so you’re not reflected in the window. If you can see your reflection in a shop window or glass façade, chances are it’ll show up in your photo, too. Try angling yourself 10 or 20 degrees either way to avoid ending up in the picture, as this may also help to emphasise the flatness of the glass surface and avoid it acting like a mirror.

Try holding a polarising filter in front of your phone’s camera lens and rotating it until reflections are reduced. According to Nikon’s guide to using filters, a circular polariser filter can help to cut down on reflections when shooting through glass. Afterwards, if you swipe up on a photo in Samsung’s Gallery app, you may get an Erase reflections option under Edit suggestions, according to Samsung’s support page for the US.

Fine detail looks mushy

Straightening and cropping images taken in good lighting: use the 50MP or 200MP (Ultras) setting on the main camera to retain as much detail as possible. Taking pictures in low light: use the 12MP setting on the main camera. The Galaxy merges pixels to produce cleaner images. Our resolution guide explains the trade-offs, including which lenses stop working at 200MP.

Taking pictures of details on buildings: use the 3x telephoto cameras on the S24, S25 and S26 and the 3x and 5x (111mm equivalent) telephoto cameras on the S24 Ultra, S25 Ultra and S26 Ultra. Galaxy A and Z Flip phones don’t have telephoto cameras, so use the main camera’s 50MP setting and crop into images after taking them.

Contrast and colour in bad light

For a textured look, especially in brick or stone, try a side-lit shot with the sun low. For detail shots without any shadows at all, go on an overcast day. The midday sun works against you, with strong contrast and deep shadows under a white sky.

Blue hour (just after sunset) is great for capturing a building’s façade with lights on, as the fading light allows you to expose for both the sky and lights without losing detail in either. Try to avoid camera shake (steady the phone somehow or use Night mode if it’s too dark to hold still). Aim for a white balance of about 4000 to 4500K (warm windows with a hint of blue sky).

Tourists in front of the building

At popular landmarks or structures, it’s always good to show up earlier to dodge the masses. Object eraser is this nifty tool that will help you remove small objects from a photo. On Samsung Galaxy devices running One UI 8.5, you’ll first need to turn on Object eraser from Photo editor settings in the Gallery app. AI eraser, available on Samsung Galaxy AI smartphones, is another handy object removal tool that you’ll find under Photo assist. The Object Eraser guide explains both.

Editing architecture photos

1. 1

   Straighten first

   Open the photo in the Snapseed app. Use Crop and rotate to straighten the horizon. Use Perspective to make vertical lines parallel. Straightening can also be achieved in the crop tool in Samsung’s Gallery editor (the name of some tools may vary depending on which version of One UI you’re using).

2. 2

   Crop away the stretched edges

   Corrected images will often leave a distorted edge around the outside. Trim it off, but be sure to keep the building’s proportions looking as realistic as possible.

3. 3

   Set contrast and texture

   Add some contrast first. Brick and stone benefit from a little added texture using the Details tool in Snapseed. Just be careful not to overdo it, because it can quickly give your images crunchy, unnatural-looking edges!

4. 4

   Balance the light

   Selective or Brush can be used to tone down an overly bright area of the sky or bring out detail in a dark doorway without affecting the rest of the picture.

Our symmetry guide will allow you to get those perfectly symmetrical pictures by lining the centre line up dead centre.