On DIYPhotography, writer and photographer Dunja Djudjic say that she caught Samsung Malaysia using one of her photos to advertise the background-blurring feature (known as live focus or portrait mode) of the Galaxy A8 Star. The photo was not taken with a Samsung A8 Star. Instead, it was taken with a DSLR camera she owns.
Djudjic assumes that Samsung licensed the Photo from her through the photo site EyeEm.
Djudjic wrote:
My first reaction was to burst out into laughter. Just look at the Photoshop job they did on my face and hair! I’ve always liked my natural hair color (even though it’s turning gray black and white), but I guess the creator of this franken-image prefers reddish tones. Except in the eyes though, where they removed all of the blood vessels.
Whoever created this image, they also cut me out of the original background and pasted me onto a random photo of a park. I mean, the original photo was taken at f/2.0 if I remember well, and they needed the ‘before’ and ‘after’ – a photo with a sharp background, and another one where the almighty ‘portrait mode’ blurred it out. So Samsung’s Photoshop master resolved it by using a different background.
As Djudjic notes in her story, Samsung Brazil got caught doing this same thing as recently as August, and Huawei did the same thing for a commercial.