Not sure what you are even trying to say. As stated I OPENED the OP posted RAW file and processed it through my ACR 9.1.1 and Ps CS6 and came up with an OK image, different I think that what I would have shot. Not that I even would have been done with it at that point but I did my normal work flow on it and since he has is own camera and exposure it is to me a bit over exposed. I then SAVED it via Ps as a JPG as that is what we are supposed to be posting on UHH. I posted my version of the OP's image. Not totally to my liking but that might be my point of exit as I did not want to fuss with his image beyond what I normally do with my own images. Yes, I like Bob's version better.

Normally I always shoot RAW myself but I am capable of processing pretty well JPGs too I my get from my CellPhone or just JPEGs I find on the WEB. So I am not sure why you are ragging on me when I essentially said and did the same as everyone else. You that bored?

If we take a photo of a reference such as a colorchecker passport it's highly unlikely that the colors on the reference are matched by a photo without some work to get it there. Each camera will interpret the scene to its designed settings and limitations.

The cameras sensor has its pixel sites with either a red blue or green filter on top of it. However what each site receives is not just say at a red site red frequency light but also some blue light and some green and a bit of infrared and ultraviolet too. The sensor doesn't know how much of that signal is down to red frequency light its just measuring a charge. If the light source has a broad spectrum such as daylight then the recorded values will be fairly well represented under a sodium light which has a very narrow band of wavelengths the record is not going to be accurate at all, the blue channel will contain a signal but not from blue light as its not present...

So lets get over the first hurdle, there is nothing special about a SOOC camera jpeg. It does not accurately represent the scene recorded it just the result of a program that took a recorded signal, the raw file and processed it automatically.

Using different cameras will get different results , using different settings will give different results, these maybe ok or they may be terrible. if you are using auto white balance and photograph a sunset for example the result will be very different from what you saw. Your cameras software may recognize that its a sunset and adjust the processing to suit or you might choose a scene mode to adjust the processing...

As photographers we should already appreciate the difference the right light makes to a scene, some of us will get up before dawn to travel to a particular place in order to get the right light.

So the next question, do you care about the result?
If you are on this forum I would tend to think you would. Not every shot needs to be a masterpiece sometimes its just to record some information like a bus timetable or the lecturers notes on a white board. Or maybe to record a pothole to send to the council so they might actually fix it.

Some photos you do want the best result you can get, and this is where post processing comes in.
The key difference between a raw file and a jpeg is information. The jpeg has most of the information thrown away and the rest has been compressed and approximated.

The raw file has everything you captured when you took the photograph. On a sunny day lets say you expose so the sky is blue but you find that has left your subject in the shadows and lacking detail, your camera recorded that detail but the automated jpeg process just decided to call it black or perhaps you chose to expose for your subject and your sky is now white when it was blue. If the jpeg has recorded those sky pixels as white you just can't recover the blue that was in the original capture. Your camera applies a tone curve to the raw data and a white balance to the whole scene. The problem with a curve is you don't know what that curve was and you can't flatten it out and apply a better curve. Applying a curve on top of a curve usually results in a wonky curve some points will reenforce and some will cancel out and the result can be a bit of a mess.

So long story short the raw file can potentially be used to improve the detail within the final photo to achieve a better result, but the detail needs to be present in the image file and it usually has been thrown out in the jpeg image.

Of course you need to take a decent photo in the first place, which is a much bigger topic and even more controversial.

Photographers tend to think about the exposure triangle, but there is a fourth element light which you can modify with filters reflectors scrims and additional light sources. ND filters can make a big difference on a bright sunny day you might want a shallow depth of field but also a slow shutter speed. With an ND filter you can dial back the light making this possible. maybe use a scrim to soften sunlight and shadows...

I have been getting into video recently and perhaps surprisingly the camera settings are quite different from usual photographic settings. the best source video is pretty flat, lacking in contrast saturation and sharpness. This helps record maximum information and dynamic range which makes it easier to color correct and color grade. You can apply this to photography as a video is a number of stills shown one after the other.

So to sum up the use of raw makes for maximum information available to you in your edit. However more important than editing is getting the right lighting for your subject. Its probably better to get to sleep early so you can get up early and get the best light for your photo rather than working late into the night editing so you miss the light you would have if only you hadn't slept in.

I can highly recommend looking into cinematic video, the techniques used, are there to tell a story set a mood, create an emotional response.
It very much can be applied to stills photography.

While I get your meaning, and it is an important distinction, common parlance calls it an image. I searched my Canon RP users guide for the term 'raw image' and got 67 references. Here is one direct paste:

A RAW image is raw data output by the image sensor converted to digital
data. It is recorded to the card as is, and you can select the quality as
follows: 1 or F. F produces RAW images with smaller file sizes
than 1.

RAW images can be processed using [3: RAW image processing]
(=325) and saved as JPEG images. (Just as for 1, all JPEG size
options are available for F.) As the RAW image itself does not change,
you can process the RAW image to create any number of JPEG images
with various processing conditions.

So depending on ones point of view a JPEG also cannot be viewed without software that can read the data and use its instructions to create an image on a monitor screen.

Technically, there are no RAW images. There are RAW image files. Which need some software to enable a person to see the data translated into some image format. You are correct that a jpg image file can be viewed using some software, whether embedded in an application, such as a web browser, a viewer, or a processor (photoshop). Regardless of what Canon, Nikon, Hasselblad, etc. write in a manual for users, the files are technically image files. Apparently, the attempt to keep things simple is a benefit for some people. Thus, the less technical reference to a RAW image.
--Bob

I shoot in Raw and JPEG so I can instantly see what I have taken as soon as I pull it up in the computer. For many years I deleted the raw files to save space on my hard drives for non-important photos. I could just shoot myself for doing so as I now exhibit my personal work in galleries. The problem is similar between looking at artwork that is a vector vs. raster image. Vector is similar to a raw photo. It is crisp, holds its image even when enlarged, and is easily able to be manipulated. A raster image is similar to a jpeg file, in that it loses its quality when enlarged, doesn’t have the details within the file allowing it to be manipulated. Another thing about jpeg files, each time you adjust them, you eat away a bit at the file. With a raw file, it stays alone, until you save it as a jpeg.

That's for sure! All of these points have been covered repeatedly every few months and nothing new is ever offered.

But what seems to have gone unnoticed is that johneccles is using a camera that creates a 12-bit raw file. This bit depth is part of the reason that ETTR was invented.

Simply by moving to a camera capable of producing a 14-bit raw file we can get two more stops of dynamic range, the ability to recover more shadow information and less need for ETTR. Of course, you may end up with a bigger, heavier and more expensive camera.

So if you can live with a 28mm field of view, you don't need a camera at all - just a smartphone that produces a decent JPEG. You pay your money and you take your choice.

"But what seems to have gone unnoticed is that johneccles is using a camera that creates a 12-bit raw file. This bit depth is part of the reason that ETTR was invented."

How did you exactly determine that <johneccles> is using a camera that produces a 12-bit file and not 14-bit? Did you look up the specs. or have some special app. for viewing the EXIF data? The Windows 10 Raw File Codec I have to not work with his Raw files (they must be too new or old, as it works fine with my Pentax and Fuji Raw, and friends Canon and Nikon Raw files). When I look at his file with Bridge in Ps on my PC is appears as a 16-bit file. That is probably because just like my own 14-bit files I am opening them with ACR and I have it set to create a 16-bit 300ppi file in Ps. So how do you know the OP has a 12-bit and not 14-bit camera? That certainly would explain things slightly.

While you have accomplished your dramatic intent, the result had nothing to do with exposing to the right, the scene's dynamic range, developing from raw or the peculiar color balance you have set in your camera. It's all in the settings you used during the color conversion to B&W.

I demonstrated this in Creating a Dramatic B&W Cloud Image using a JPEG snapshot from an iPhone:



That took about two minutes in Capture One Pro. Of course, I could have taken another few seconds to level it.