Three ways to add camera shortcuts to the Galaxy S4 lock screen

As with many features of the Galaxy S4, there's more than one way to get a camera shortcut on the lock screen

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is brimming with features, but right out of the box you could be forgiven for thinking there's no way of unlocking the phone straight into the camera app. Like many of the S4's advanced features, this is optional, and disabled by default. Enabling it is easy enough, but as it turns out there are three different kinds of camera shortcuts you can put on the Galaxy S4's lock screen.

The first is simple enough -- from the Settings app, go to My device > Lock screen and enable "Shortcuts." From there you can customize which shortcut icons are shown down below on the lock screen, and loading one of these apps up is a simple as dragging it upwards. Naturally, one of the defaults is the camera app.

The second and third ways both involve lock screen widgets, and you'll need to enable them through Settings > My device > Lock screen > Multiple widgets. Once that's done, you can go to Lock screen widgets > Favorite apps or Camera, which controls the widget that appears on the far right. The "camera" option is straightforward enough -- select it, and you get a big blocky camera shortcut, like on the Nexus 4. "Favorite apps" is a bit more versatile, and this allows you to customize a grid of apps -- one of these, of course, can be the camera app.

So there's more than one way to get your camera shortcut fix on the GS4, and there's a good chance at least one of these three will suit the way you use your phone. For a quick walkthrough, check out the video above.