Samsung Photo Editor: How to Edit Photos in Gallery

Samsung Galaxy phones include a photo editor in the Gallery app to make quick adjustments to shots before sharing them. Most of the tools you’ll use regularly are on the main editing screen, but some can be found in two menus, and Samsung changes which options are where from time to time with updates to One UI. We’ll take you through a basic edit using the built-in tools from start to finish, and show you how to use the automatic fixes and undo saved edits.

The built-in Gallery editor

The steps below are ordered how a photo editor might tackle a shot, starting with composition/framing and finishing with colour. The buttons’ names are those found on Samsung’s support pages. Depending on your One UI version, button locations may vary. If you can’t find a button mentioned below, look in the bottom bar or under the three-dot More options menu. The same pencil icon opens a different editor for videos, which our video editing guide covers.

1. 1

   Open the photo in the editor

   Tap the image in Gallery and then tap the Edit icon (pencil icon) at the bottom of the screen.

2. 2

   Crop, straighten and flip

   Crop and rotate: Straighten the image first and then crop it (you can mirror the image with Flip, as Samsung’s Australian support page shows). Tip: In Gallery, open an image, spread two fingers on the image and tap the Quick crop icon. Samsung’s S26 user guide says the cropped image is saved as a new image.

3. 3

   Try Auto adjust once

   One UI 4.1 moved the Auto adjust button to the bottom of the screen. Have a look at what your Samsung phone suggests, then decide if you want to go along with it. Tip: Use Auto adjust to get an idea of which adjustments (brightness, colour etc.) are needed before adjusting anything yourself.

4. 4

   Set the light, then the colour

   Adjustment tools: Make brightness adjustments first and other adjustments (e.g. saturation, warmth) later. Adjust only one slider at a time. Tip: Lower highlights (e.g. clouds, a white shirt) until you can see some texture/detail. Tip: Raise shadows only as far as they still look like shadows.

5. 5

   Add a filter or decorations if you want them

   Depending on the version of One UI, you can apply filters and stickers or, since One UI 4.1, find stickers and other items in the Decorations menu. Tip: Check how filters look on top of your adjustments, because sometimes they take colours to extremes.

6. 6

   Resize for sharing

   Resize: Tap More options > Resize and select a size (in %). Tap Done. Samsung’s UK support page says you can only reduce the size of an image, and resizing may not be available on all Samsung phones. It’s handy if you have a form with a file upload feature or an email client that doesn’t allow attachments bigger than a set size, and the Instagram guide lists the sizes Instagram keeps.

7. 7

   Save a copy

   Saving: Tap More options > Save copy if you want to keep the original image as well. Samsung’s UK support page notes that on phones with Android 11, tapping Save replaces the original image with your edited version.

Which Gallery tool for which job

Not all of the Gallery’s tools are in the pencil menu, so it’s good to know where everything’s at. Here’s a list of some of the more common tasks people use Samsung’s Gallery app for, along with the path Samsung lists for doing them on current phones.

Let the Gallery suggest a fix

If you own a Samsung phone with Galaxy AI, you may also notice Edit suggestions when you swipe up on a photo. Samsung’s support page describes some of these suggestions. For example, Background blur applies a Portrait mode-like effect to photos of people or pets that weren’t taken in Portrait mode. Other suggestions include different erasers (such as reflection and shadow), Remove moire, Colorise, and Remaster.

Try Remaster on underwhelming photos, especially older scanned photos or dim photos taken indoors. According to Samsung’s S26 user guide, Remaster can improve photos that are dull or blurry or have a low resolution. Preview Remaster changes at full size before you save them, and look especially closely at skin and other textures. If you have old photos, we suggest following our restoring old photos guide to colourise old photos. We recommend taking a photo of the old print first and then colourising that photo with Colorise.

Object Eraser and Photo Assist

Samsung has Object Eraser as a photo editing tool to remove objects or people from your pictures. There’s also Galaxy AI’s Photo Assist feature that can move and remove unwanted items from photos. Object Eraser is disabled by default in Samsung Galaxy phones running One UI 8.5. To enable Object Eraser, open the settings in Gallery > Photo editor settings. Photo Assist has two sets of options: Erase and Move plus Create and Style, according to Samsung’s S26 user guide. Tap the Assist icon to access these options.

Note that the edits made in Photo Assist will have a watermark indicating AI generation. Also, photos edited with Galaxy AI’s generative features can be resized to 12MP according to Samsung’s support page. So you may want to save them as a copy. Our Object Eraser and Photo Assist guide walks through both tools step by step, and the One UI 8.5 photo features guide covers the newer Photo Assist options.

Undo an edit you already saved

If you tapped Save, there’s no going back unless your phone and software version are among those Samsung lists on its support page for India. In Gallery, open the photo, tap Edit, tap Revert, then tap Revert to original and Save. Your image will reappear in Gallery where it was before. Still, you’re better off tapping Save copy to begin with, since Revert isn’t an option on all Samsung phones.

When another editor does the job better

Lightroom is better suited to RAW files shot in Expert RAW or Pro mode. Snapseed’s free editing tools are more selective, allowing you to edit part of an image, like making a sky darker or someone’s face brighter, rather than the whole image like most of the tools in Gallery. And per its Play listing, Snapseed doesn’t add watermarks or show ads.

Lightroom and Snapseed are just two of the apps we’ve pitted against each other, and our best photo editing apps for Android guide has all the details. If you just want quick one-tap looks and retouching, the Photoshop Express guide shows what Adobe's free editor adds. For how to organise and back up the photos themselves, see our Gallery app guide.