Smartphones have amazing cameras, but I’m not happy with any of them out of the box. I have to tweak a few things. If you have a Samsung Galaxy phone, these settings won’t magically transform your main camera into an entirely new piece of hardware, but it can put you in a position to capture the best photos your phone can muster.

Turn on the composition guide

Alignment is easier when you can see lines

Credit: Bertel King / How-To Geek

Much of what makes a good photo has little to do with how many megapixels your phone puts out. It’s all about the fundamentals, like how you compose a shot. One of the most important aspects is the placement of your subject.

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Whether you’re taking a picture of a person, a pet, a product, or a plant, placement is everything. Is the photo actually centered? Or, if you’re trying to cultivate more visual interest, are you adhering to the rule of thirds (which is not to suggest that the rule of thirds is an end-all, be-all)? In either case, having an on-screen grid makes all the difference.

To turn on the grid, tap on the menu icon and select the settings cog. Then scroll down until you see Composition guide and tap the toggle to turn it on.

Going forward, whenever you open your camera, you will see a Tic Tac Toe-shaped grid on your screen. Now, instead of merely raising your phone and snapping the shot, take the time to make sure everything is aligned.

Take advantage of your camera’s max resolution

Having more pixels means you can capture more detail

I have a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6. The camera hardware on my book-style foldable phone is identical to that of the Galaxy S24 released in the same year, which hasn’t changed much for the Galaxy S25 or the Galaxy S26 released since. On each of these phones, however, the camera app isn’t taking advantage of the full 50MP that the main lens can produce. Instead, photos are binned down to 12MP. The same thing happens even if you have the 200MP camera found on the Galaxy S26 Ultra and the Galaxy Z Fold 7.

To take photos at the maximum resolution, open the camera app and look for the words “12M” written at either the top or side of your phone, depending on how you’re holding it. The numbers will appear right next to the indicator that toggles whether your flash is on or off. For me, tapping here changes the text from 12M to 50M.

Credit: Bertel King / How-To Geek

But wait, we aren’t done yet. To save storage, your phone may revert back to 12MP once you’re done using the app. After all, 12MP is generally enough for most quick snaps and looks just fine on social media, along with other benefits that come from binning photos. But if you want to know that your photos will remain at a higher resolution when you open the camera app, return to camera settings like we did to enable the composition guide, then scroll down until you see Settings to keep. From there, select High picture resolutions.

Use volume keys to zoom in and out

Less reason to move your thumb away from the shutter button

Credit: Bertel King / How-To Geek

Our phones come with the camera icon saved as one of the favorites we see at the bottom of the homescreen. I immediately get rid of this icon. When I want to take a photo, I double-tap the power button instead.

Physical buttons come in handy once the app is open as well. By default, pressing the volume keys will snap a photo. Personally, I just tap the shutter button on the screen, since my thumb hovers there anyway. In that case, what’s something else the volume keys can do? I like for them to control zoom. I don’t zoom often enough to remember whether my gesture or swipe will zoom in or out, and I tend to overshoot the level of zoom I want. By assigning this to the volume keys, I get a more predictable and precise degree of control.

To zoom in and out with the volume keys, open the camera settings and select Shooting methods > Press Volume buttons to. From here, you can change “Take picture or record video” to “Zoom in or out.”

Adjust exposure

Brighten up a photo before you take it

Credit: Bertel King / How-To Geek

The most important aspect of a photo is how much light your lens is able to take in. If there’s too much light, your photo is washed out. If there isn’t enough light, then you don’t have a photo at all.

Exposure allows you to adjust how much light you expose to your phone’s image sensor. If you can see that a window in the background is so bright that none of the details are coming through, you can turn down the exposure. If a photo is so dark you can’t make out the subject, try turning the exposure up. Exposure isn’t a miracle worker—there’s no making up for the benefits of having proper lighting, but knowing how to adjust exposure can help you eke out a usable shot when you wouldn’t have otherwise.

To access exposure, tap the menu button, then tap the icon that looks like a plus and a minus symbol inside of a circle.

From this point, you can scroll up and down (or side to side, if holding the phone vertically) to increase or decrease exposure. If you really want to get creative, you can turn your photography up a notch by learning how to take long exposure shots on your Galaxy phone.

Help your camera succeed

Will changing these settings suddenly turn all of your photos into the perfect shot? No. No camera can do that, even if you spend thousands of dollars to buy it. But frankly, I take most of my photos for How-To Geek using my phone, and these settings help me get the job done.

Brand

Samsung

RAM

12GB

Storage

256GB

Battery

4,400mAh

Operating System

One UI 8

Connectivity

5G, LTE, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4

Samsung’s thinnest and lightest Fold yet feels like a regular phone when closed and a powerful multitasking machine when open. With a brighter 8-inch display and on-device Galaxy AI, it’s ready for work, play, and everything in between.