Switching to raw from JPEG is easy and you will find that it opens the door to far wider possibilities of what you can do with your captures. You will need to do some basic editing such as sharpening, adding clarity, etc. but this would only be the beginning of where you can take images from there.

I jumped into Lightroom initially, taking advantage of the free trial, in an effort to salvage some images I had captured---no other opportunity to capture again. They were shot in raw and my version of Photoshop Elements did not work with Windows 10. Long story; however, I will add that this was my first time shooting raw and using Lightroom. I found the Lightroom interface rather intuitive and within minutes I had salvaged my images. That was the beginning and since then I have perused YouTube videos and courses on Lynda to move beyond the basics.

As to what to do with your JPEGs, Lightroom should be viewed as an organizer first with editing capabilities laid on top. Thus, you can use Lightroom to organize both JPEGs and raw images. I now use Lightroom to organize my cell JPEGs as well as my raw files from my Canon and this has allowed me to organize captures that were taken long, long before I started using Lightroom and before I began shooting raw. The organizational capability of Lightroom is amazing. I began with absolutely no organizational plan in mind---don't recommend this. Through Lightroom, I have finally organized about 75% of ALL of my images.

As an editor, I use Lightroom about 90% of the time and Photoshop in the remaining cases. If you take advantage of the Adobe Photography subscription, you will get Lightroom and Photoshop together. While these are two stand-alone applications and can be used separately, there is integration with Lightroom such that you can select an image in Lightroom, right-click and select edit in Photoshop, and when you close Photoshop, you are returned to Lightroom complete with your Photoshop edited image added to Lightroom. This further facilitates organizing your images.

Regarding the educational needs, there are many resources freely available on YouTube and I recommend doing a search there on Lightroom and Adobe has videos available as well. Lynda is a subscription-based resource; however, if your local or county library has an arrangement with Lynda, you will be able to access their content with simply a membership to your library. Don't limit yourself to simply your local or county library. Many libraries have inter-agency agreements. Thus, if your library resources don't have an agreement with Lynda, you may still be able to access Lynda if some other county or city library has such an agreement.

You should be aware, too, that Lightroom is a non-destructive editor. This means that no changes are made to your files themselves. Rather, Lightroom retains your changes in a database and applies them as you view your images or when you export them to share or print. Thus, you can always reset to the original or drop back to some point in your editing history if you wish to change your image.

Side note: You should consider monitor calibration, too, as you step to raw, using an editor such as Lightroom, and sharing your images.

If funding is a concern, there are alternatives such as Darktable, Lightzone, and RawTherapee to name a few. Regardless, I continue to use Lightroom and Photoshop. The Adobe Creative Cloud subscription of $10/month is well worth the price.

My advise, whenever you change editing to RAW but especially if you are interested in the best colors, use the editor that the manufacturer created for your camera. Lightroom or any other software AFTER you have initially worked with the proprietary software. If your images will be used for the Internet any software will do. A calibrated monitor is a must for better accuracy.

You will find that images out of camera when shooting RAW data are practically lifeless. You will have to add contrast, brightness, saturate colors, select a WB and even sharpen a bit more than a JPEG file. Perfection will take some time. If you have someone experienced in editing RAW data to help you get started you are for a good start. Take an image of a sunrise or a sunset in RAW data and you will see that the colors you saw are not going to be present in the actual image and you will understand what I am saying.

To improve the quality of your images you should start with yourself. Do you have enough basic information on photography? Are your shooting techniques impeccable? Do you use a tripod? Do you know composition? There are many others like learning to see the light and what it does to your subjects and a very important one, learn to see what is around you.

Good luck!

Hi, a couple of years back I received some superb advice here when I was deciding on the purchase of my first DSLR. I ultimately purchased a Canon 80D and I primarily use a Tamron 18-400mm lens. I am still shooting in JPEG and I currently use the very basic processing program, which is part of my IOS operating system. More and more I'm receiving encouragement to change to RAW. I recently moved to NC and I plan to continue to take photos of Nature and Wildlife including Birds. I realize that when I change to RAW I also have to change the program I use to process my photos. When I have a discussion about changing to RAW from folks from all over, they almost all use Lightroom but I realize there are other programs too. So all this said how difficult is it to transition to RAW? I'm told it's easy to learn Lightroom, but I don't know, what I don't know about it yet or whether I should consider another processing program. I am concerned about the learning curve in all this and the time it may take to process my photos. But while I may be like many somewhat resistant to change, I think I'd like to improve my photo quality. I welcome any advice on how easy it may be to change to RAW and any reference info. Additionally I welcome any advice on what to do with all my JPEG photos after the change. Thanks in advance.

Hi, a couple of years back I received some superb advice here when I was deciding on the purchase of my first DSLR. I ultimately purchased a Canon 80D and I primarily use a Tamron 18-400mm lens. I am still shooting in JPEG and I currently use the very basic processing program, which is part of my IOS operating system. More and more I'm receiving encouragement to change to RAW. I recently moved to NC and I plan to continue to take photos of Nature and Wildlife including Birds. I realize that when I change to RAW I also have to change the program I use to process my photos. When I have a discussion about changing to RAW from folks from all over, they almost all use Lightroom but I realize there are other programs too. So all this said how difficult is it to transition to RAW? I'm told it's easy to learn Lightroom, but I don't know, what I don't know about it yet or whether I should consider another processing program. I am concerned about the learning curve in all this and the time it may take to process my photos. But while I may be like many somewhat resistant to change, I think I'd like to improve my photo quality. I welcome any advice on how easy it may be to change to RAW and any reference info. Additionally I welcome any advice on what to do with all my JPEG photos after the change. Thanks in advance.

Also, no one seems to have mentioned this yet, but you can load RAW photo files into Apple Photos, and do some RAW editing. also Photos has a feature called extensions whereby you can send a photo off to another editor such as Affinity Photo, or Luminar, or even NIK if you happen to have the Google version of it. Affinity, and Luminar work very well on the Mac and both are far more comprehensive. Also you can easily duplicate a photo in Apple Photos or reset any edits, I also have Lightroom 6 and Photoshop elements, and I find myself using Luminar, and Affinity Photo since Adobe went to subscription. You might just try using Canon Digital Photo Professional that you get for free with your Canon 80D it works very good for both jpeg and as a RAW processor. It also has a print module in the software.