When the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra launched, one of the selling points Samsung mentioned was the Cine LUTs available in the camera app.
These help the Ultra fulfill its mission as a professional-focused foldable, giving creatives a new way to use their device and also to somewhat make up for the modest Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra update.
However, now that I’ve used the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra for several weeks, I’m ready to declare that another filter mode on the phone is the real star of the show. I’ve used it loads, both for professional and personal work.
What even is Cine LUT?
LUT stands for Look-Up Table. In videography or filmmaking, a LUT functions like a filter that you drop on top of your footage to give it a dramatic look.
You usually won’t use the LUT in a final product, though. It’s a placeholder that gives you an idea of the finished video before you color grade your footage, which is when you manually add the color and uphold consistency between shots.
On the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, you’ll find the Cine LUTs by going to Pro Video mode in the camera app, pressing LOG to change recording modes, and selecting LUTs.
LOG profile captures lots of detail and color, giving color grades more information to work with, but before being edited, the footage looks gray. The LUTs in the camera app give you an impression of how the footage could look after you color it.
For example, Blockbuster emphasizes contrast between orange and blue, which is common in Hollywood movies, while Thriller reduces saturation and increases contrast.
The device doesn’t capture these color styles, but you can apply them afterward. In the Gallery app, you can also place these same filters onto finished videos.
This is a new tool for One UI 8.5, but the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra gets more bespoke (and useful) LUTs. I’ve also found Flex Mode useful while using the mode, as it lets you separate the viewfinder from the controls.
As someone who’s used LUTs in filmmaking, I find them useful, but they’re a niche tool that many people won’t check out. However, another filter mode is much more handy.
Create your own filters with the Gallery app
Designing your own filter look
If you want to create a unique look for your photos — and videos — there’s another tool which I’ve found far more useful than Cine LUT. Instead of relying on a few Samsung-made options, you can make your own filters.
In the Gallery app, press the pencil edit option, and then the icon of three overlapping circles, which brings up the filters list. There are a lot of options here, and you can download more, but pressing the Plus sign on the left brings up the option I’m talking about.
This is a custom filter mode. It lets you select another photo you’ve taken, and the phone will create a filter based on the color profile of that shot.
For example, you capture a shot of a sunny beach on a summer’s day. However, later in the day, the clouds roll in, and your photos aren’t as vibrant. Using this filter tool, you can make your later shots look more like the first one.
I’ve found this mode useful for a few regular tasks. The most common is product photography when I’m reviewing products. It’s been a lifesaver on that front.
When you’re taking photos for a review or article, it’s great to have consistency to keep a house image style throughout a piece. However, changes in light or angle, or the quirks of a smartphone camera, can cause snaps to look different.
Not with this filter-creation mode. It lets me pick one well-lit, nicely-contrasted snap, and have the other options echo its look.
Product photography is a niche use case, but a more common one is social media snaps. If you’re about to do a photo dump from a holiday, documenting your last month, or showing off a recent activity, it’s great to have some consistency between shots.
Using the filter-creation tool, you can make a series of photos look like they’re from one shoot. You could have taken them on different days, in different locations, and even with different camera setups, and they’ll present a maintained tone.
It makes sense for a brand to brag about professional-level features when they’re announcing a new phone like the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra: they sound advanced, and it’s what makes you want to buy the handset.
But I’ve always found it’s the smaller, less flashy features which make a handset worth buying. They may not be the tools you’d brag to your friends about, but they’re the ones you use all the time.
The custom filter mode is just that: a useful, though not flashy, tool. It’s not the only one on the Z Fold phones. I’ve already waxed lyrical about another retro feature on the handsets that needs to make a comeback.
- SoC
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Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy
- Display type
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Dynamic AMOLED 2x 120Hz
- Display dimensions
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8-inches open / 6.5-inches closed
- RAM
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12GB / 16GB
