tommyhawk23 Loc: Rancho Mirage, CA

I am 64 yr old amateur photographer. I've been taking photos with SLRs since I was in the military in my early twenties. I've always felt that I was pretty decent at composition, but I don't know a lot of the nuisances of lighting/exposure, etc. Nor do I know everything about digital cameras. For instance, why would you choose to shoot "raw"? Does it take up less space? What's the primary benefit and biggest drawback of shooting "raw"?

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

Think of the RAW image as your digital version of a negative. Its not actually a photo until its been processed by you in your digital "darkroom". A JPG image more closely relates to a slide as there is much less you can do with it as far as processing and corrections are concerned.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

To extend the dynamic range of the image - ie. pull details from the shadows and highlights - especially when the dynamic range of the subject is high.
The drawbacks are that you will need software and KNOW how to use it - AND - have the time to use it. Raw takes up more memory and slows your camera down.

warrior Loc: Paso Robles CA

Tomorrow 12 Jan 0900 pacific if you are free go to http://www.creativelive.com Jon Greengo's class. Its FREE!

snowbear

1. Raw has more color depth (as in number of bits) than jpeg. More color, more color depth but larger files.
2. Raw can be edited over and over without image degradation - jpegs can't.
3. Raw notes but ignores color settings and white balance. You can fine tune those without losing image quality (jpegs can't).

If you shoot jpegs and are happy with the images you are getting, continue to use jpegs. If you find you want to "tweak" every shot, consider raw.

Whuff Loc: Marshalltown, Iowa

With jpegs you are more limited in the amount and type of post processing you can do. Every image I take is individually processed by me in a number of PP programs depending on the photo but as long as I shoot in RAW I can manipulate them as I please. If you shoot in jpeg you give up some of that control.


Walt

PS. Welcome to UHH

tommyhawk23 Loc: Rancho Mirage, CA

Thanks to everyone! I appreciate the quick responses and your experience. Got lots to learn!

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

More dynamic range
More detail captured
More information recorded - instead of only 256 tones per color channel, you will have 4096 or 16,384 per channel with 12 bit and 14 bit raw files, respectively.

8 bit = 256 per color = 16.7M total colors
12 bit = 4096 per color = 68,719,476,736
14 bit = 16384 per color = 4,398,046,511,104

While you may only be able to distinguish between 8M and 10M different colors and tones, having the extra bit depth results in more "adjustability" with greater freedom from posterization, clipping, and other undesirable things that can happen to images.

Here is a nice explanation:

http://x-equals.com/blog/taking-a-byte-out-of-bit-depth-jpeg-vs-raw/

If you are photographer that likes to push the limits of image quality, shooting raw and using jpeg only as an output format (not for editing) is a good way to go. If you are content with out of the camera images (cameras all record raw, when you get a jpeg from a camera it is a result of the in camera processing of the image and is based on whatever camera settings you made), then shoot jpegs. The disadvantage is that if a particular saturation, contrast, sharpening or setting other than exposure is not optimal for a specific image, you can only make relatively modest adjustments in post processing to fix that. Once the camera processes the jpeg, all the other information that was not used is discarded. When you shoot raw files, its all there forever.

pithydoug Loc: Catskill Mountains, NY

As always a clear concise synopsis. Even the jpg only family should be satisfied.

slyfoxdoc

The documented advantages of shooting in raw noted in the several posts prior to this one are certainly true and cannot be denied. However, the technological advantages made in haw most modern digital cameras over the years have made these advantages much less of a problem for all but the most purist of photographers. I personally have taken scores of pictures in raw during some vacation or other event and these images languish on a memory card. While other times, I use. JPEG and enjoy my efforts right away. Is it considered blasphemy to state the obvious... that more times than not, the JEPEG images are perfectly fine and one would be hard pressed to see any way that tweaking them in Photoshop would have improved them enough to merit all the time and effort required to do not? If that is your thing...go for it. I love photography but I personally also have a life outside my digital darkroom.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

My digital darkroom is fun where else can I take a dull photo and turn it to a very vibrant picture

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

The primary values are listed already: a richer, more complete file to allow for post processing/editing and archival purposes. If you do not care for post processing and you like the way your camera renders jpegs, there is no need to use raw. If you're an editing junkie like me who enjoys fiddling with photos to create different looks, raw gives you more to work with without degrading the image file nearly as much.

fotodon Loc: Oberlin, OH

Previous posters have given you very good explanations of the technical differences of RAW vs JPG. Number one being that you have much more latitude in post processing.

Now you must decide how important post processing is to you. To each his own, but for me, a suggestion that post processing is not necessary to attain full artistic value would be like me telling an accomplished painter/artist that he could achieve the same results by simply utilizing a paint by numbers kit.

Having said that, I hope that my comment draws more chuckles than frowns. And, please at least explore the realm of post processing. It can be both very rewarding and very frustrating, the later coming when you realized that after hours of learning a new technique new technology makes it old school. (another chuckle I hope)

The greatest benefit of shooting RAW is that it allows you to do more post processing. The greatest drawback to shooting RAW is that it allows you to do more post processing. (man, I am on a roll this morning. I think I will use this line in my signature line)

MadMikeOne Loc: So. NJ Shore - a bit west of Atlantic City

Thank you for your short and very easy (for me) to understand explanation. A big lightbulb just went on in my brain. Your analogy of JPEG to slide vs Raw to film is what flipped the switch.

You have a real knack for simplifying things Thank you!

MtnMan Loc: ID

You have a number of great answers above. Another important one to me is that you don't have to worry about white balance because it is easy to change in post processing RAW images. White balance makes a surprising difference and using auto white balance often doesn't work well. While there are ways to adjust white balance before taking a jpeg image you may not want to have to do it.