Daryo Jul 7, 2012:

agfaphoto.com: "The lower the contrast, ... -- "A blurrier image tends to have softer contrast" is true - that's used by on-board electronics to "autofocus" a picture, but the other way round
-- "The lower the contrast, the blurrier an image will be" is nonsense written by someone not paying attention.
"Softer" (as opposed to "hard contrast"), which should've been used here, is not the same as "blurred" (image taken out-of-focus).
BTW “blurred” is not necessarily used in a pejorative meaning. There nothing wrong or clumsy or unprofessional in having a “blurred background” in a picture.
A "soft contrast" picture can be a very sharp one, i.e. a properly focused one. I'm sure Tony would agree on that one. End of digression.
Pour en revenir à nos moutons:
"a RAW image has a gentle roll-off instead of hard clipping" is an accurate formulation of the idea, with or without "of the tonal curve". The problem I see is not in that.
It's a question of language register – it’s turning an "arty" original into its "technical expert variant", which is akin to using formal language when slang is in the original.
Also, more I think of it, I'd agree that “meilleure” would really fit nicely.

Daryo Jul 6, 2012:

a nice example of what this is about:
"Creating Custom tone curves...."
[http://www.lastnightphoto.com/canon/curves.html]

Tony M Jul 5, 2012:

@ Michael Yes, that's exactly the point I was trying to make below.

Michael Barnett Jul 5, 2012:

@John As far as I know it is technically impossible to present a RAW image to a standard viewer. Programs such as Adobe Lightroom are used to process the image and then convert it to an output format.

Tony M Jul 5, 2012:

Thanks, John! That does help a bit; even if it isn't a specifically technical discussion, it is still important to correctly capture the sense of what he is saying, otherwise we could end up with a situation like "Chinese whispers"!

The fact that this person is talking non-technically clearly then explains the use of the rather 'woolly' term 'molle' — and I think confirms the fact that an equally woolly term like 'soft' could work here in EN too; but I would definitely suggest putting it in quotes, so as to make it quite clear it does not mean soft in the sense of blurred!

By the way, it isn't normal to deliver 'RAW' images anyway, since in themselves they cannot be exploited — there always HAS to be some kind of conversion to some output format.

What he may in fact be saying, in veiled terms, is that he prefers to make his own creative adjustments in RAW, so that when he delivers the results in one of the output formats, the images can no longer be 'played with' by others down the line — or at least, the possibilities for 'messing up' his pictures are much reduced!

John Di Rico (asker) Jul 5, 2012:

A little more context Thanks everyone for your feedback...
He is talking about editing the photos to make them better, saying that he never delivers a raw image in the previous sentences, meaning in my mind that there is room for improvement. He edits the photo to give it a new perspective.
This is not a technical talk but someone being interviewed about their artistic approach, etc. Sorry for not providing this context earlier.

Tony M Jul 5, 2012:

@ Daryo That's partly true, yes... but it's not really what is being referred to here.

But in a way, the point of a RAW format is that it maintains more 'levels of grey' at the lowlight and highlight ends of the range, thus allowing the choice later in the processing chain of just how to handle the tone curve.

Daryo Jul 5, 2012:

soft contrast means a lots of shades of grey - not much of "total black" or "total white" in the image.
A High Dynamique Range picture (the point of the RAW format) could be also defined as "soft contrasted"? (As opposed to "hard contrast")

Michael Barnett Jul 5, 2012:

@John I originally thought "weak" as well, but then the sentence made no sense, since RAW images are excellent for maintaining dynamic range within blacks and whites, thus retaining detail. I think Tony has hit it on the nose with malleable or manipulable.

Tony M Jul 5, 2012:

@ John I see what you mean, but the whole point here is that this is being vaunted as a POSITIVE quality — one of the reasons why raw is better than JPEG! I've been doing a lot of work in this area, so I do know what I'm talking about. Your context is a bit slim, but generally speaking, what are being described are desirable qualities of a raw format, so 'gentle' or some other word with a positive connotation is required, IMHO.

And note too that I feel sure this is not talking about detail in terms of sharpness or resolution, but rather, detail in terms of brightness variations — so your shadows are not just inky black areas, but maintain some level of tonal graduation.

John Di Rico (asker) Jul 5, 2012:

Lacking... I was originally thinking something like this, "not good at" or "weak"...

Tony M Jul 5, 2012:

@ Kashew I don't think it's that meaning of 'soft' here, J.

Here, it is being cited as a positive quality of 'raw' images, the fact that they do not hard clip blacks / whites; thus more detail information can potentially be saved, leading to a better effective dynamic range.

kashew Jul 5, 2012:

Soft as Tony suggests seems the usual photographic translation, without using the more pejorative "blurred".
See:
Plus le contraste est faible, plus l'image semble "molle" ou floue.
agfaphoto.com
The lower the contrast, the blurrier an image will be.
agfaphoto.com

Tony M Jul 5, 2012:

'soft' Could be 'soft', not in the sense of 'soft-focus', but in the sense of not hard clipping low-/high-lights.

However, is there a possibility of a typo or scanno? I'm wondering if the original word might have been 'meilleure', which was misspelt and got mangled by a spell-checker into 'molle'; I'd certainly say that 'meilleure' would be technically true and logical here.