Often on the internet I run across debates over whether to use RAW or Jpeg when capturing images.  If you google it you’ll get lots of people with opinions, so rather than helping, it just gets more confusing.

If you are new to digital photography, it is important to understand exactly what RAW is and what you can do with it.  Unfortunately, most of those arguing RAW is unnecessary don’t really understand much about it. Some even go as far as claiming RAW is the “lazy” way of doing things ... shoot it now and fix it later.   Actually that’s a pretty good description of using just jpeg .. the lazy way - just let whoever wrote all of the camera firmware make the decisions.

Before reading, please know that I fully understand the importance of a jpeg capture workflow in some circumstances.  In our Kiddie Kandids studios, all captures are in Jpeg ... we do not use RAW.  But we have 100% control of every external influence on the capture, and we don’t need the camera to make any important decisions.  However, when I do a personal sitting or go on a landscape shoot I use RAW, and would never use just jpeg.

What is RAW?  One thing it’s not is an image format, like Jpeg, Tiff, or Gif.  Those are standardized formats for images, created and controlled by various groups with no company or vendor to answer to.  RAW on the other hand is the RAW data from your sensor when you make a capture written to a file.  Most small digital cameras don’t even allow you to save this data, so you don’t have a choice. Any good DSLR or high end point and shoot will offer saving the RAW data to a file.  Unfortunately,  almost every manufacturer has a proprietary format and normally their own version of RAW processing software. Sometimes they even encrypt important information within the file, such as white balance, to make it harder for others writing RAW software to process their files.  Adobe introduced a “standard” format, called DNG a few years ago, in the hopes to clean up the mess we are currently in, but very few manufacturers are willing to allow their cameras to write the RAW data in this format.

Since it isn’t an image format, to view the RAW data it must be processed. The image on the back of the camera after you took the picture is an example.  If you tell the camera to save a jpeg, it will process the RAW data to create the jpeg. You can also have your camera save out that raw information, and then process the image yourself in a multitude of RAW processing programs on a computer.

The problem with just letting the camera create the jpeg is when the camera is done processing your file and making the image file, it throws away all of the information it used to make it, and all you have left are the results.  If you decide you want to create something better or different, you can’t.  Is the white balance off a little?  You may get away with tweaking the jpeg in Photoshop, but  chances are that will result in problems that will require fixing, and since you have no spare information anymore, the more you do in Photoshop,the more messed up you file becomes. A far better result and faster method is to let the RAW processor handle the white balance settings when it processes the RAW data..

So how often does the camera “nail” it - provide a jpeg that couldn’t be any better?  When it comes to high end work, not often ... in fact probably never.  It gets close and it may look pretty good.  But to be honest, if you create an optimum exposure, the camera software is going to create an image that is too light much of the time, and rarely will it get the white balance perfect.  It’s just trying to hit an average based on some programmers idea of average when the firmware was designed, and a good capture is biased to the right side of the histogram to take advantage of the inherit advantages of level’s available. (If you want more information on this I recommend these articles,  “Expose (to the) Right” by Michael Reichmann, and “Exposing for RAW” by Andrew Rodney.)  Even  scenes with a large dynamic range that can’t be exposed this way are better off saved as RAW, because handling all that dynamic range is a tough thing to do, and with a RAW file you have all of the original data to take advantage of.

If you save the RAW file, you personally can take full control of the conversion process and use all of your skills, preferences, and knowledge of the scene when you took the shot to create the image file. Definitely not the lazy way, because it takes some time, effort, and skill.  Some argue that it takes too much time, but to be honest, a handful of presets in Lightroom and you can probably handle a few hundred raw files in minutes by just using the presets and get better results than you got from the camera. Those files that deserve more attention can then get it ... an option you lose if you just shoot jpeg.

An interesting analogy that popped up on a forum the other day is shooting jpeg is sort of like shooting polaroid ... what you get is what you get, and the only way to change it is to shoot it again differently. Maybe not quite that bad because you can do some limited tweaking in Photoshop, but you can mess the image up very quickly doing so.  Shooting film is somewhere in the middle, you have some control, but to be honest, much of that control is in the hands of the film and paper manufacturers - especially color films and paper. Your control is by selecting from a few film types, etc.  Shooting RAW is sort of like being able to make your own film with any characteristics you like, develop it any way you like and then print it anyway you like.  The data is in such a pure state you have complete control for the whole process.  Definitely not the lazy way.

So should you ever save just in jpeg?  Sure, snapshots of the kids, situations where you have to take lots of images and you have good control of things like white balance and exposure.  Wedding photographers (at least for the candids), sports photographers, and journalists may find a jpeg workflow is just the ticket most of the time. (although if I did weddings again, I’d focus on using RAW and creating a very efficient work flow ... that white wedding dress can be a nightmare with jpeg capture).

If a really great image is your goal, you had better capture it in RAW.  You may luck out with a jpeg, but do you really want to leave it to luck?