One UI 8.5 Photo AI: Photo Assist & AI Eraser Explained

Photo Assist, the Galaxy AI-powered menu in the photo editor that held features like Generative Edit in One UI 7 and 8, has received a major overhaul in One UI 8.5. In One UI 8.5, Photo Assist has been rebuilt into four new tools: AI eraser, Move, Create and Style. Here’s everything you need to know about each new photo feature and tool in One UI 8.5, what it’s like to use them and where to find them on your Galaxy smartphone.

Aside from these four new Photo Assist options, One UI 8.5 also disables the classic Object Eraser by default (it’s still accessible in Gallery’s settings menu). Samsung has also added a Private album option to Gallery in One UI 8.5.

What's actually new in One UI 8.5 for photos

One UI 8.5 launched with Samsung’s Galaxy S26 series, and according to Samsung the update started rolling out on 6 May 2026 to the Galaxy S25 series, Galaxy S25 FE, Galaxy S24 series, Galaxy S24 FE, Galaxy Z Fold7, Galaxy Z Flip7, Galaxy Z Fold6 and Galaxy Z Flip6.

There’s an emphasis on Photo Assist and its AI-powered eraser tool, although Samsung’s Galaxy A57 and Galaxy A37 announcement page instead highlights the Object Eraser tool, as Galaxy A phones don’t get Photo Assist. There’s also a new Private album in the Gallery app. For the first time, you can also ask Bixby to open and edit photos using natural language.

• Photo Assist, the name of the Galaxy AI menu in Gallery (in One UI 7 and 8, this held Generative Edit), has been rebuilt around four tools
• Make edits you describe via a text prompt or by uploading a reference image
• Easily erase people or objects by just tapping or selecting the subject/object and Photo Assist’s AI-powered eraser tool will remove it and intelligently recreate the background
• Move: select and move/resize the subject in your shot, with Photo Assist filling in the vacated area
• Create: add new elements to your shot or expand the boundaries of the original (AKA outpainting)
• Style: recreate your image in a different artistic style (cartoon, painting, watercolour, sketch, etc)
• A new Private album lets you hide certain photos behind your chosen screen lock and away from view in Gallery and other apps
• Summon Bixby from within Photo Editor to carry out commands (via voice or text) to open and edit images

Where to find Photo Assist on One UI 8.5

1. 1

   Open the photo in Gallery

   Select an image, and then select the pencil icon to launch the image editor.

2. 2

   Tap the Photo Assist icon

   Samsung’s support page describes it as a blue circle with stars. You can also tap the Galaxy AI button/icon in the photo viewer. On One UI versions 6.1 to 8 this menu opened up Generative Edit.

3. 3

   Pick a tool or just type

   Pick one of the four tools from the toolbar, or ignore it and use natural language to specify what you want to change in the text field at the bottom of the screen.

4. 4

   Circle a spot to scope the edit

   The biggest quality improvement on 8.5 was that prompts are far more effective when they're applied to a region of the picture rather than the whole thing. So you're best off drawing a lasso around the area (doesn't have to be neat) you want edited, and then making your prompt.

5. 5

   Tap Add from image to blend a clip

   In Create, select a second image using the Add from image option (the icon next to the text entry field). The app will then add in the subject of your second image, attempting to match perspective and lighting.

Prompts and image clips in Photo Assist

Similar to prompting AI image generation on a desktop, you can give the AI Photo Assist editor commands like “add a red wool ball next to the cat”, “remove the wires from the sky”, or “change the cloudy sky to golden hour”. In addition, One UI 8.5 introduces the ability to instruct Photo Assist to clip an object from another image and add it to the current one.

Note that Samsung’s footnote says Photo Assist may require an internet connection and Samsung Account sign-in, and its support page lists those as requirements for using the AI-powered features in Gallery.

On the Settings > Galaxy AI > Photo assist screen in One UI 8.5, there’s an option to use AI eraser and Move on the device, according to SamMobile, meaning you won’t have to upload photos to the cloud to remove unwanted items. Don’t confuse this with the more all-encompassing Process data only on device toggle on the Galaxy AI screen, because in SamMobile’s testing with One UI 7, enabling it disabled all Photo assist features. Depending on your phone and One UI version, some Photo Assist features may or may not work without an internet connection.

The four tools and what each one does

AI eraser and Move

One UI 8.5 turned off Object Eraser by default, but as a moderator on Samsung’s community confirmed in June 2026, it’s still there in Gallery under Menu > Settings > Photo editor settings > Object eraser, and makes an appearance in the photo editor underneath the four-circle icon when you switch it back on. Object Eraser isn’t the same as Samsung’s newer AI eraser that’s part of its Photo Assist suite of editing options. With Photo Assist’s AI eraser, you tap or draw around something and it’ll do its best to erase it. (There’s no separate Erase shadow or Erase reflection option in the instructions for Photo Assist’s AI eraser, though there is in those for the on-device Object Eraser. Samsung first introduced those options in 2022, and they eventually made their way to older devices like the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy A52.)

The same segmentation technology underpins another of Photo Assist’s tools, Move. It can be handy to select something and move it around or even resize it, but you have to remember that whatever gap it leaves behind will be filled in with AI. For best results, avoid selecting too much at once. For example, if you want to erase a person who is standing in front of a complicated backdrop, first erase just their body and accept the result, then get rid of their shadow separately, because the model copes better with smaller jobs than bigger ones. For step-by-step instructions, including how to switch the classic Object Eraser back on, see our Object Eraser and Photo Assist how-to.

Create

Create, which may run in the cloud (so plan on a Samsung Account and a connection), also acts as a home for Samsung’s outpainting and generative fill features.

With outpainting (or “add canvas”, as Samsung calls it), you can expand beyond the borders of your original crop to have the AI fill in the gaps.

With generative fill, you can either draw a very basic sketch of something and have Samsung’s AI turn it into a realistic object, or take something from another image and drop it into Create to have it inserted.

The only AI photo editing features SamMobile names as working on-device are AI eraser and Move.

Style

Style transforms your images with various styles, including cartoon and watercolour, oil painting and sketch, even 3D-rendered portraits.

Probably the least “serious” of the four image editing tools, Style suits a profile pic or birthday card better than an image you’re likely to print or archive.

Also like Create, Style isn’t included in SamMobile’s list of image editing features that can be processed on the phone, so plan on a connection.

What changed in Gallery with the Private album

There’s also a new Private album in Gallery, which Samsung calls a locked space in Gallery. You can add photos and videos to it, but they only show once you unlock the Private album with your screen lock, and the Tips app for One UI 9 on the Galaxy S25 Ultra says it hides them from Gallery and other apps. Private album offers a simpler way to keep personal photos and videos private than Samsung’s Secure Folder feature. Secure Folder, which offers more robust privacy and security options, sticks around. The Gallery app guide covers the remainder of the app. For hiding albums and the Freeform collage layout, see our guide to Gallery albums. To compare the Private album with Secure Folder and Google Photos’ Locked Folder, check out hiding photos on a Samsung.

• Long-press on an image in Gallery and select any additional images, then tap More → Move to Private Album → Move and enter your screen lock.
• You can view images you’ve moved to your Private Album at any time by going to Gallery’s Menu → Private Album, then unlocking using your screen lock.
• If your phone is not secured with a screen lock, you will first be asked to set one up.
• Don’t worry about excluding the Private album from OneDrive sync, as Samsung/Microsoft shut this down on 30 September 2026 anyway (see our Samsung Cloud photos guide for details on what replaced it).

The rest of the Galaxy AI creativity tools

There are also three other Galaxy AI features classified under "Creativity" in Samsung’s Galaxy AI hub: Creative Studio, Audio Eraser and Auto Trim. Whereas Photo Assist garners most of the headlines, these additional Galaxy AI tools cover what it doesn’t touch. They add the ability to create stickers and other graphics, remove specific sounds from videos, and automatically create highlight reels.

Sticker sets and graphics in Creative Studio

Create personalised stickers, greeting cards and wallpapers with Creative Studio, found next to Photo Assist in the Galaxy AI menu.

Pick a photo from your Gallery, describe your desired sticker style (e.g. sketch, watercolour, pixel, 3D emoji etc.) and Creative Studio will create a whole pack!

Send them in Messages and WhatsApp chats or add them to Notes. No need to fire up your PC to get creative, as this is the easiest way!

Fixing the sound on a video with Audio Eraser

Audio Eraser is a great tool for those moments where you wish you could go back in time and re-record a video. Perhaps there was too much wind noise while shooting a clip at the beach or you wanted to mute some of the background noise at a concert. With Audio Eraser you can open any video in Gallery and the app will isolate different sounds (music, voice, crowd, wind, noise) which you can individually adjust with handy sliders.

Its page under Settings > Galaxy AI says Audio Eraser is also available in some Samsung apps (like Voice Recorder) and compatible third-party apps, with options for third-party apps showing up in the quick panel.

We checked that page on a Galaxy S25 Ultra running One UI 9. You can also use Galaxy Buds while editing videos to hear how they sound.

• Find a video you want to tweak, tap the pencil icon and select Audio Eraser.
• Use the handy sliders to turn up or down any stems detected in the soundtrack.
• Tap Save and choose Save copy if you want to keep the original file as it is.

Highlight reels with Auto Trim

Auto Trim will scan the photos and videos in a Gallery story (or you can specify a folder), identify a common theme (like a hike, or a birthday party, or a sporting event), and assemble the best bits into a short, snappy video with cuts on the beat that you can share with family and friends. It’s like Apple’s Memory Movies and Google Photos Memories, except Auto Trim actually gives you some real editing options that don’t feel like a toy.

What changes in the camera app, and what to ignore

There are also improvements to photo editing in One UI 8.5’s Gallery app, including filters for editing videos (previously these could only be applied in the Camera app). The Camera app also gains minor improvements, including the ability to see what a LUT looks like live while recording in Log, as well as a handy shortcut to Dual Recording when using Video mode. Document scanning will now happen automatically. RAW shooters who edit in Lightroom will notice little of this, since most of that takes place in Gallery. Outside of photo-related improvements, Samsung’s marketing materials for One UI 8.5 also highlight its Now Brief and Now Nudge smart features, as well as improvements to Bixby’s contextual assistance, but we’ll skip over those here.

What the Galaxy S25 gets from One UI 8.5, and what stays S26-only

Some of the features mentioned in this article were introduced in the stable version of One UI 8.5, which began rolling out for the Galaxy S25, S25+, S25 Ultra and S25 Edge in Korea on May 6, 2026, and started its global rollout on May 11.

Almost all the Photo Assist and Gallery app-related features we’ve covered are available on the Galaxy S25 series thanks to One UI 8.5. The exceptions are a few camera app-related features, some of which are still exclusive to the Galaxy S26 series even after One UI 9, while others rely on hardware found only on the Galaxy S26 Ultra that can’t be replicated with a software update.

There are a couple of camera-related differences that matter here. The S26 series has a tri-state Night control (Off, Auto, Max), according to S26 reviews. On the S25 series, you'll still have to use the Night shot toggle in Photo mode or the (separate) Night mode under More. Also, Expert RAW is the only way to shoot 24MP photos on the S25 series.

One UI 9 launched on September 28, 2026 in Korea for the S25 series, followed by the US (October 5) and Europe (October 6). For photos and video, it adds Super Steady (with Horizontal Lock) and a new vertical split-screen view for Dual Recording. My FanCam in the Gallery app can reframe a video to keep one particular person in the frame. The S26 Ultra’s brighter f/1.4 aperture for the main camera and f/2.9 for the 5x telephoto (which also has a new, smaller prism (ALoP) instead of the larger periscope design previously used) are hardware, so no update brings them to the S25 Ultra.

Which Galaxy phones get One UI 8.5 photo features?

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