Samsung Black and White Photography: Settings and Editing

There are three options for taking a B&W shot on a Galaxy phone: the mono filter, one of Portrait mode’s mono effects, or after the fact with Gallery or another image editor. Each of these methods will affect how flexible you’ll be when it comes to customising your shot later on.

Three ways to get black and white on a Galaxy

On Samsung phones, the mono options are scattered around, and they create different types of files. Here’s a rundown of the various options and what they’re best suited for so you know which to reach for next time you lift your phone to shoot.

While the exact names of the filters may vary from one iteration of One UI to the next, according to Android Authority, the Galaxy S25 comes with ten built-in filters out of the box, two of which, Shadow and Shade, are black-and-white filters. Head over to Samsung’s Galaxy S26 support page to see what sliders (contrast and film grain, to name a couple) are available to fine-tune each filter. But again, if you’re using a different Galaxy phone, all you need to do is look for the filters with grey thumbnails. Our camera filters guide covers all ten looks and what each of the sliders changes.

Black and white myths, checked

A lot of the advice given around mono on phones is only correct to a degree. Here are the four most common myths, and how they apply to the Galaxy:

The mono filter is all you need

The filter also works while taking the picture, showing a black and white version of the image on the screen to help you frame and shoot with an idea of what contrast and shapes will look like.

The catch is that this saves the picture as a black and white JPEG, meaning you won’t be able to adjust colours separately if you want a darker blue sky, for instance, or a brighter red jumper.

Samsung’s own support pages state that filters can be applied in the Gallery editor and the Galaxy A57 guidebook says filters can be changed on a picture you’ve already taken, so it might be an idea to leave images in colour and then apply the filter in Gallery afterwards just to be safe.

You need Expert RAW for good black and white

RAW files can be especially helpful in high-contrast lighting situations (bright skies, darker foregrounds, etc.) because there’s more highlight information available when converting. Expert RAW files are 16-bit linear DNG files according to Samsung. You can also capture DNG RAW files (in addition to JPEGs) in Pro mode by going to Camera settings > Photo format > Pro mode picture format and selecting RAW and JPEG.

Not all Galaxy phones support Expert RAW, but Samsung’s support page (as of an October 2026 update) includes the Galaxy S20 through Galaxy S26 series of phones as well as the Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Z Flip series. It also mentions “Galaxy A series (models with advanced camera systems),” but doesn’t specify which Galaxy A phones that includes. Note that SamMobile wasn’t able to download Expert RAW on its Galaxy S25 FE, so it’s best to check availability in the Galaxy Store app on your phone.

For JPEGs from Photo mode, a careful conversion in Gallery or Snapseed is plenty for most scenes. Lightroom opens DNG files, but Adobe treats raw editing as a Premium feature, as our Lightroom vs Snapseed comparison explains. The Expert RAW guide covers the app itself.

Removing the colour is the same as converting

If you just decrease the saturation, each colour will translate to a fixed level of grey, so a red flower and the green leaves it’s surrounded by might well end up looking identical. It’s better to control the conversion yourself, and decide what brightness level you want each colour to appear as in the final greyscale image (as discussed in Wikipedia’s article on monochrome photography). If you'd rather keep the red, our red photography ideas show how to stop it clipping.

In Lightroom, tap B&W in the Color panel. You’ll get a new set of sliders that you can use to adjust how each colour translates to greyscale (drag the blue slider to the left to darken a blue sky, or the orange slider to the right to lighten skin tones, etc). In Snapseed, the Black & White tool gives you a few presets that are akin to placing coloured filters over your lens.

Black and white saves a dull photo

Digital Photography School’s guide warns that converting to black and white rarely fixes a bad image. On a grey day with flat light your camera will capture lots of mid tones that translate to a grey image which won’t stand out.

Look for pictures with good contrast and textures. Strong side lighting on a person’s face, bold shadows on a building and textures like weathered wood all make great candidates for black and white as these pictures rely on shapes and textures and not just colours.

Shooting settings for black and white

Use this as a guide to help you think through what might be happening in a given situation. Choose your lens, then choose your mode. Finally, use the last column to ensure you are comfortable with the frame before you shoot.

If you are taking a picture of a bright face against a dark background, use spot metering, which measures brightness in a small area in the centre of the screen. For more information, refer to the metering modes described in Samsung’s S26 user guide. Areas of the image that are under- or over-exposed are indicated on the exposure monitor in Pro mode. This can be helpful when photographing whites, as they are prone to losing detail when over-exposed.

When shooting in daylight, avoid using a high ISO setting as any noise will be particularly noticeable in smooth areas such as skies and walls. Samsung notes that once shutter speed is adjusted manually, ISO sensitivity cannot be set to Auto. The Pro mode guide covers the rest of the controls.

Converting a photo in Samsung Gallery

1. 1

   Open the editor and protect the original

   Launch Gallery, open your pic and tap the edit (pencil) icon. When you’re done, tap Save as copy under More options to retain the original.

2. 2

   Try a mono filter first

   To turn your pic into black and white, tap the Filters icon (represented by three circles) and scroll through the effects until you find the black and white filters. You can use the slider to increase/decrease the intensity of the effect. This is a good way to quickly check if your pic will work in B/W.

3. 3

   Or use Spot color for a full conversion

   Alternatively, tap the icon with four circles and choose Spot color. Samsung claims that this instantly converts your pic to B/W, with the option of tapping an area of the pic to bring back the colour, which is handy if you want just one item in your pic to retain its colour.

4. 4

   Darken a colour before converting

   If your pic includes a blue sky, head to Color mix before converting to B/W. Select blue and drag the Luminance slider to decrease the luminosity of the blue (there are also sliders for Hue and Saturation, but Luminance controls how dark/light a colour is).

5. 5

   Set the tones

   Head to Tone (denoted by a sun icon) and increase Contrast until shadows are richly dark. If highlights (like skies or white walls) have become featureless, decrease Highlights. Tweak Exposure and/or Brightness if necessary, but we suggest making these adjustments last and using small increments.

Converting in Snapseed or Lightroom

Google’s help page says Snapseed’s Black & White tool lets you choose one of the starting styles and add a colour filter. Then swipe up/down to choose a slider (e.g. Contrast, Grain), left/right to adjust. Note the 2026 redesign means this may be in a different place on your phone.

After tapping B&W in Lightroom, try Whites +30, Highlights -20, Shadows +20 and Blacks -30 to start with. Then drop the blue (sky) and increase the orange (skin) a bit. Particularly for smoother phone shots, grain can help avoid that plastic look. Try a subtle vignette to help keep the viewer’s eye inside the frame.

Mistakes that flatten black and white

• Don’t crank up contrast until there’s no smooth transition on faces from light to shadow.
• Don’t leave a blue sky as is. After conversion it will be almost the same grey as the clouds, if not actually the same.
• Don’t raise your ISO setting in daylight, as the increased grain/noise will show up in large smooth areas (like walls and skies).
• Don’t compensate for dark images by increasing exposure as this will blow out areas like skies and make them unrecoverable.
• Don’t shoot red and green objects together in monochrome, because they both convert to very similar greys and you lose contrast.

Black and white is especially effective for street photography, and our street photography guide covers how to set up your camera for it. For hard light and dark outlines, the silhouette guide goes further.