25 Christmas Photo Ideas for Samsung Galaxy (With Settings)

Need some photo inspiration this Christmas? It's a tricky time of year for a Galaxy on Auto: dim rooms full of bright lights, children who won't stand still, and group photos that need the photographer to be in two places at once. But it's also full of great photo opportunities. Everyone you want to photograph is in one place, there are lights everywhere, and most people won't mind you pointing a phone at them.

We've rounded up 25 festive photo ideas and matched each one to the Galaxy camera mode that suits it best: Portrait mode, Pro mode, Night mode, Motion photo and burst, and the timer, with a Galaxy Watch as a remote. Every idea comes with settings to get you started. If you mostly want to photograph the lights themselves, our Christmas lights guide goes much deeper on trees, outdoor displays and light trails.

Christmas photo ideas at a glance

Portrait mode ideas

Portrait mode turns a cluttered living room into a soft splash of colour behind someone's face. On a Galaxy S25 Ultra running One UI 9, tap Portrait effect to the left of the zoom options, choose Blur, Studio, High-key mono, Low-key mono or Backdrop, and use the slider to set the strength. Use the 3x lens if your phone has one, and stand around 1 to 1.5 metres away for head-and-shoulders portraits. Our Portrait mode guide covers the rest.

• A child in front of the tree. Place them two or three metres in front of the tree, rather than with their back against it, so the fairy lights blur into circles instead of looking as if they're growing out of the child's head. Fairy lights won't light a face on their own, so put a lamp to one side of them.
• Hands around a hot chocolate. Ask someone to hold a mug of hot chocolate at about chest height (a knitted jumper makes it look cosier), with the tree well behind them. Portrait mode's blur works best on simple, solid shapes like a mug. It can struggle to tell where pine needles and tinsel end and the background begins, which leaves ragged edges.
• A black-and-white portrait for the card. For a classic look on a family card, try the High-key mono effect, which gives a bright black-and-white image. For something moodier, try Low-key mono. You don't have to decide when you take the photo: the Galaxy S26 user guide says you can change a Portrait photo's effect afterwards in Gallery.
• A pet in a Santa hat. Crouch down to the pet's eye level and use the 3x camera from the same distance you'd use for a person. If Portrait mode struggles to pick out your pet, switch to Photo mode, stay on 3x and keep the tree as far behind the pet as the room allows.
• Grandparents with the grandchildren. Portrait mode can handle more than one person, but it works best with one or two faces. With three or more people, especially if they aren't all the same distance from the phone, someone can end up partly blurred, so switch to Photo mode and step back until everybody fits.

Bokeh light ideas

That dreamy, circular blur that out-of-focus points of light turn into is called bokeh, and December might be the easiest month of the year to capture it. On a Galaxy you have two ways to make it: software blur in Portrait mode, or real optical blur from the telephoto lens and manual focus. Optical bokeh is strongest when the lights are well behind whatever you focus on, and bokeh explained goes into why.

• A bauble with the tree melted behind it. Hang a bauble from a doorframe or a shelf a few metres in front of the lit tree, and photograph it on the 3x camera from as close as the lens will focus. If it won't focus, move back a little. On the Galaxy S26 Ultra, Samsung lists 80cm as the closest the 5x camera can focus, so the 3x is usually easier indoors.
• The whole tree as circles of light. In Pro mode, set focus to manual and drag the slider towards the close-up end until the lights turn into discs. Set white balance to around 3500K so they stay golden instead of white.
• Fairy lights in cupped hands. Ask someone to hold a short string of battery fairy lights in their cupped hands, focus on the hands and let the rest of the room go dark. Night mode is the simplest option. In Pro mode, start at ISO 400 and 1/30s with the phone braced.
• Shoot through the lights. Hold a string of fairy lights or a strand of tinsel a few centimetres in front of the lens, and tap to focus on the face of the person behind it. The lights nearest the lens become a warm, blurred frame. Move them around until you like the composition, and take several shots.
• A reflection in a bauble. Hold a big silver bauble close to the lens and photograph the room and family reflected in it, tapping the reflection to focus. The curve squeezes far more of the room into the ball than you'd expect, and you'll be in the reflection too, which is half the fun.

Night mode ideas

Night mode combines a series of frames (30, according to Samsung) into one brighter, cleaner photo, so the phone has to stay still while it works. On a Galaxy S25 Ultra running One UI 9, Night sits next to Photo in the modes bar, and on the Galaxy S26 series it's the moon icon in Photo mode. Prop the phone against a wall, put it on a shelf or rest it on a bench, and don't move it until the countdown finishes. Our Night mode guide explains how long that takes.

• The tree in a dark room, with one lamp on. Leave a single lamp on to light the sofa and the walls. Otherwise Night mode gives you a scatter of light dots floating in black, rather than a photo of your living room.
• A Christmas market after dark. Night mode lets you take market photos without a tripod. Rest the phone on a stall counter or lean it against a post, and wait for a gap in the crowd, because anyone who walks through the frame during the capture can turn into a smear.
• Your house lights at blue hour. Go out 20 to 30 minutes after sunset, while the sky is still deep blue and your lights are on. Night mode works handheld. With the phone on a tripod, try Pro mode at ISO 50 to 100, 1/4 to 2 seconds and 4000K, so the sky stays blue and the bulbs stay warm.
• The family through a lit window. Also at blue hour, photograph your family from outside through the window of a bright room, perhaps while they're decorating the tree. Tap the window to set exposure for the room, which is much brighter than the street, and let the outside of the house fall into darkness.

Pro mode ideas

Pro mode (tap More, then Pro) lets you set ISO, white balance, shutter speed and focus yourself. Galaxy flagships allow exposures of up to 30 seconds, while some A and M series models stop at 10 seconds or don't let you set the shutter speed at all. Note that once you choose a shutter speed manually, you can no longer leave ISO on Auto. Our Pro mode guide walks through each dial.

• Tree lights that stay warm. Set ISO 200 to 400, a shutter speed of 1/15 to 1/30s and white balance around 3500K, which stops the fairy lights looking blown out and too white, and rest the phone on a steady surface or a tripod. Keep an eye out for dark bands across the picture, which mean the lights are flickering, and try 1/30s or 1/60s to get rid of them.
• Sparkler spirals in the garden. Outdoors at dusk, put the phone on a tripod, set the shutter speed to between 2 and 5 seconds, ISO to between 50 and 100 and the self-timer to 2 seconds, then ask someone to swirl a sparkler in front of the camera. Keep sparklers well away from anything flammable, and have a bucket of water to hand for the used ones.
• Flour flying in the kitchen. Catch flour in the air as someone claps their flour-coated hands together while baking. Use a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the action, 1/250s or quicker, and raise the ISO until the picture on screen looks bright enough. Tap the shutter a few times, because the cloud only looks its best for a moment.
• A shaken snow globe. Give a snow globe a good shake, put it on a table near a window and set manual focus on the scene inside. Focus peaking helps with small objects like this, drawing a coloured outline around the parts of the picture that are in focus. Around 1/125s keeps some sense of movement in the glitter, and around 1/500s freezes it.

Motion photo and burst ideas

Christmas morning moves too fast for a single shutter press. Motion photo saves a short video clip with every photo you take. On a Galaxy S25 Ultra with One UI 9, its icon sits at the top of the viewfinder and can be set to Off, Auto or On. Burst takes a series of full photos while you swipe the shutter button towards the edge of the screen; on One UI 9, you set what that swipe does in Camera Assistant under Shutter. Our Motion photos guide and burst mode guide cover both in detail.

• Presents being opened. Turn Motion photo on before anyone wakes up. If the photo is a fraction too late, play its clip in Gallery and tap the Capture icon to save a better moment as a separate photo. That frame has less detail than the main photo, so keep it for screens rather than prints. When the wrapping paper starts flying, swipe the shutter for a burst instead.
• The dog and the new toy. Dogs and squeaky toys need a fast shutter speed. In Pro mode, try 1/500s and ISO 400 to 800 next to a window and tap the shutter repeatedly, or use burst in Photo mode. Gallery stacks burst photos together, so open the stack, keep the best and delete the rest.
• A festive GIF for the family chat. Open a Motion photo of someone pulling a cracker or blowing out a candle, tap the three-dot menu and choose Export, then GIF. You can trim it and change its speed before saving, and a GIF plays on any phone, not just a Galaxy.

Timer and Galaxy Watch ideas for group photos

The group photo is the one shot everyone wants from Christmas, and the one the photographer is usually missing from. In Photo mode, open Quick controls (the four-dot button next to the zoom buttons), tap the clock icon and choose 2, 5 or 10 seconds. With Samsung's free Camera Assistant app, Timer multi-photo options can take up to seven photos per countdown, which improves the odds of getting one with nobody blinking. Our camera timer guide covers every option.

• The whole family on the sofa. Set the phone on a tripod or a pile of books at the family's eye level. Don't put it on the coffee table, or you'll get a photo of everyone's chins. Press and hold on the person in the middle to lock focus and exposure, leave a space for yourself, and use the 10-second timer with 5 pictures taken 1.5 seconds apart.
• Matching pyjamas, with the watch as a remote. If you have a Galaxy Watch, open Camera Controller and the Camera app opens on your phone. The watch shows what the camera sees, so you can check everyone is in frame from where you're standing, then tap Capture. There's also a Timer button if you want a few seconds to put your arm down.
• Round the dinner table. Before the food goes cold, prop the phone at one end of the table at seated eye level and turn on Motion photo. If someone blinks, Galaxy AI phones can fix it with Best face, which picks a better expression from the Motion photo's clip for up to five people.
• A selfie with the tree. Switch to the front camera and turn on Show palm (Camera settings, then Shooting methods). Hold up an open hand and a countdown starts. Or turn on Voice commands and say "Cheese" or "Smile". If you can't fit everyone in, tap the Switch to wide option on the front camera screen.

Samsung says Camera Controller works with Galaxy watches up to the Watch8 series, paired with a Galaxy S9, Note9 or any newer Galaxy phone. Some camera modes don't work with it, and to film video you need to switch the phone to Video mode first.

Turning your photos into Christmas cards

Card and print services mostly use 5×7-inch or A6 cards, which are a slightly longer shape than the 3:4 photos a Galaxy takes by default, so don't frame too tightly if you plan to print. Leave space around the people. If you want room for a greeting, put the family to one side and leave a plain stretch of wall or tree on the other.

On Galaxy AI phones, Photo assist's Style option can turn a family photo into a watercolour, an oil painting or one of seven other looks. The result carries an "AI-generated content" watermark in the bottom-left corner, so it will show on any card you print. Our Photo assist guide shows every style, and our photo printer guide covers printing at home.

The decorations will come down, but our winter photo ideas last right through January. For one assignment a day, try our free 90-day photography challenge, and you'll find more lists like this one in our photo ideas and challenges section.

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