Yes, many comments will ensue.

I have two distinct workflows. I use JPEGs on my iPhone. When I do serious work with my Lumix, I'll use raw for my personal work, and raw for professional work in events where there is variable lighting, or in high dynamic range situations. I use JPEG for certain kinds of paid work where I can control the lighting and the contrast ratio.

JPEG was conceived as a DISTRIBUTION format. It applies lossy compression. The camera is taking a 12, 14, or 16 bits per color channel file and processing it to an 8 bits per color channel file, then it compresses it heavily. So it throws away lots of data from the sensor... first when downsampling it to 8 bits per color channel, then when saving the file. That is why it isn't particularly well-suited to post processing.

Raw files contain all the digitized but otherwise unprocessed data from the sensor. So the entire dynamic range is there.

Photo papers generally reflect only a 5 to 5.5 stop range of brightness under normal room lighting. But your camera can record 12 to 15 stops of brightness range in a raw file! If the scene brightness exceeds 5.5 stops, the camera is going to clip some of that range in the highlights, or the shadows, or both. So if you save the raw file, you can recover some of the highlights and shadows and compress them into a 5.5 stop range that will fit on photo paper.

That can be important when using the camera in bright daylight with no clouds in the sky. It can be important for macro copying film negatives. It can be important when doing event work such as weddings, where black tuxedos and white wedding gowns need to show texture in the fabrics.

If you want great results from JPEGs (meaning accurate color and detail in highlights and shadows), you have to nail the exposure. You have to set an accurate white balance at the camera, and you have to avoid the need for heavy post-processing. If you are working with studio lighting, you can control the ratio of brightness from highlights to shadows. You can control shadow edge acuteness. You can control the transition from specular highlight to diffuse highlight to shadow. You can control specularity. You can do a custom, manual, or pre-set white balance in reference to a target. All those things are necessary to stay within the limits of what JPEGs can contain.

Examples of where I would use JPEG capture professionally:

School portraits (that entire industry uses JPEG workflow from end to end).
eBay product photography of small items under "tent" lighting
Parts catalog photography
Any location where the lighting is very flat and uniform and well diffused, and more importantly, does not change during the photography. I'll use 100% manual exposure (pre-set custom white balance, fixed aperture, fixed shutter, and fixed ISO).

In most other situations, I'll use raw capture and post-processing.

In a comparison of exposure latitude, JPEG capture is much like color slide film photography. Raw capture is much like color negative film photography

I see a lot of truly outstanding photos on this site that were taken RAW and then post processed. I tried taking a few RAW and right out of the camera they pretty mundane. I don’t have photoshop, so of course I can’t doctor them up properly.

I guess my question is, you that post process, do you shoot all of your shots as RAW, or just those you think have potential for something better? I ask because last evening my daughter, two grandsons and I took an evening walk. She and I both had cameras and together (including one of the boys) we shot nearly 400 jpeg images. Yes I trash canned a bunch, but the amount of time I would have spent post processing RAWs would have been enormous. Any responses?

For those who don't do postprocessing, I would just like to give my opinion (in case you weren't expecting it).

I put ALL my images into LR. Most of get some form of processing. Even if the exposure and color and all that are fine, I do not feel constrained to use the aspect ratio that my camera uses. I feel that the aspect ratio is part of the composition, and I adjust it to make the composition the way I want it.

I see no reason to limit my images to a fixed aspect ratio. Therefore, most of my images will require some postprocessing.

I see a lot of truly outstanding photos on this site that were taken RAW and then post processed. I tried taking a few RAW and right out of the camera they pretty mundane. I don’t have photoshop, so of course I can’t doctor them up properly.

I guess my question is, you that post process, do you shoot all of your shots as RAW, or just those you think have potential for something better? I ask because last evening my daughter, two grandsons and I took an evening walk. She and I both had cameras and together (including one of the boys) we shot nearly 400 jpeg images. Yes I trash canned a bunch, but the amount of time I would have spent post processing RAWs would have been enormous. Any responses?

Yes, many comments will ensue.

I have two distinct workflows. I use JPEGs on my iPhone. When I do serious work with my Lumix, I'll use raw for my personal work, and raw for professional work in events where there is variable lighting, or in high dynamic range situations. I use JPEG for certain kinds of paid work where I can control the lighting and the contrast ratio.

JPEG was conceived as a DISTRIBUTION format. It applies lossy compression. The camera is taking a 12, 14, or 16 bits per color channel file and processing it to an 8 bits per color channel file, then it compresses it heavily. So it throws away lots of data from the sensor... first when downsampling it to 8 bits per color channel, then when saving the file. That is why it isn't particularly well-suited to post processing.

Raw files contain all the digitized but otherwise unprocessed data from the sensor. So the entire dynamic range is there.

Photo papers generally reflect only a 5 to 5.5 stop range of brightness under normal room lighting. But your camera can record 12 to 15 stops of brightness range in a raw file! If the scene brightness exceeds 5.5 stops, the camera is going to clip some of that range in the highlights, or the shadows, or both. So if you save the raw file, you can recover some of the highlights and shadows and compress them into a 5.5 stop range that will fit on photo paper.

That can be important when using the camera in bright daylight with no clouds in the sky. It can be important for macro copying film negatives. It can be important when doing event work such as weddings, where black tuxedos and white wedding gowns need to show texture in the fabrics.

If you want great results from JPEGs (meaning accurate color and detail in highlights and shadows), you have to nail the exposure. You have to set an accurate white balance at the camera, and you have to avoid the need for heavy post-processing. If you are working with studio lighting, you can control the ratio of brightness from highlights to shadows. You can control shadow edge acuteness. You can control the transition from specular highlight to diffuse highlight to shadow. You can control specularity. You can do a custom, manual, or pre-set white balance in reference to a target. All those things are necessary to stay within the limits of what JPEGs can contain.

Examples of where I would use JPEG capture professionally:

School portraits (that entire industry uses JPEG workflow from end to end).
eBay product photography of small items under "tent" lighting
Parts catalog photography
Any location where the lighting is very flat and uniform and well diffused, and more importantly, does not change during the photography. I'll use 100% manual exposure (pre-set custom white balance, fixed aperture, fixed shutter, and fixed ISO).

In most other situations, I'll use raw capture and post-processing.

In a comparison of exposure latitude, JPEG capture is much like color slide film photography. Raw capture is much like color negative film photography