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I'm curious to see some real examples of where simply capturing the same photo in RAW (and being processed by someone who can do it justice) has significantly improved the photo at the end of the process.

I understand what RAW is and why you might want to use it over JPEG, however, I'd like to actually see some examples where it has allowed for a better result. More control over tone, conversion from the more detailed data to 8-bit RGB etc.

Does anyone have or know of some processed RAW+JPEG shots for exact comparison?

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    \$\begingroup\$ Just a note to other potential answerers. Please don't look at my answer as reason not to post your own examples. Like Nick, I think it would be very useful to see more visual examples of the benefits of RAW over JPEG. So, if you have an example comparison to offer, please post it! \$\endgroup\$
    – jrista
    Aug 19, 2010 at 4:18
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    \$\begingroup\$ I agree. Also, it might be worthwhile capturing in RAW if just for the information that I, for one, thought might have been lost altogether due to the exposure. As a new photographer I wouldn't have even thought about RAW when trying to deal with something like that. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 19, 2010 at 4:55
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    \$\begingroup\$ See also: What are the pros and cons when shooting in RAW vs JPEG? \$\endgroup\$ Aug 19, 2010 at 8:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ For a specific example when shooting in difficult lighting, please see: Lots of noise in my hockey pictures. What am I doing wrong? \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Feb 12, 2019 at 23:09

16 Answers 16

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The Value of RAW:

I think you may be misunderstanding the value of RAW. In the grand scheme of things, from seeing a scene with your eye to printing it, the best you get is what the printer you printed with is capable of, and that tends to be considerably less than what you see, or your camera or your computer is capable of representing.

The value of RAW is not really in the end result, although it is possible for the end result created with a RAW image to be better than that created with a JPEG. The reason for this has to do with the workflow between snapping a shot and saving or printing a final image. RAW gives you headroom that JPEG can't come close to offering. You have the ability to recover highlights and shadows, apply alternative tone curves, rework old RAW images with newer RAW processing algorithms to get better results, etc.

You are basically asking what is the value of an original film negative or slide, over a final scanned JPEG copy of that film negative/slide. With the original film, you have plenty of capability to rework and improve, use different printing techniques, etc., whereas with the final JPEG, you got what you got, and not a whole lot more.

Example:

An original JPEG of Lower Yellowstone Falls. The sky was completely blown out, as this was one of the very first few photos I took over a year ago when I first got into photography. I had researched RAW, along with most other camera theory, long before I ever purchased a camera, so I had RAW+JPEG enabled at the time:

Lower Falls JPEG

Below is the reworked version from a RAW file. Because of RAW's considerable headroom, I was able to nearly fully recover the horrendously blown-out sky, retone the whole image, and generate three alternative exposures (-1.5 EV, Original EV, +1.5 EV) using Lightroom to create a far sharper, clearer, and richer HDR image:

Lower Falls RAW Corrected

It was largely because of the radical improvements I was able to make to this image that I rarely ever shoot in JPEG any more. I opt for RAW the vast majority of the time, and as I am still a student of the artistic aspects of photography, I appreciate the headroom that RAW offers. Most of the time, the final image saved from a RAW file is very similar to that of a JPEG; it's the times when you botched it big and need to massively rework an image that RAW's advantages over JPEG really start to shine. It's all in the workflow, rather than the destination. ;)

JPEG Example:

Mark took the time to rework the JPEG sample I posted, to demonstrate what can be done with a JPEG. I think its important to note that a JPEG is not completely unworkable once it is taken - I may have given that impression in my comments above. JPEG images do have some room to be reworked, if needed, however it is more limited than RAW. Mark's reworked copy of the JPEG sample is here:

Retouched JPEG Example

A couple things should be noted. For one, he was able to retone the image decently, and it looks similar to the retoned RAW example I posted. The retoning caused the unrecoverable parts of the sky to become yellowed, which I would consider an undesirable outcome. Depending on the software used, that may or may not happen. Something also not visible in the very small JPEG examples are compression artefacts, which have a tendency to become more pronounced as you rework an image, limiting your options.

Detailed Example:

Something else that I was able to recover from was a severe degree of softness, caused by the 18mm extreme of the cheap EF-S 18-55mm lens I used when I took this shot. I have some crops below that demonstrate the original image, a sharpened copy of the JPEG using a technique explained by @Guffa here on Photo-SE, and an HDR version that was only possible because with RAW, I could use Lightroom to export two additional alternative exposures 1.5EV from the original. Even using Guffa's excellent sharpening technique, the JPEG can't compare to the ability to create an HDR image from a single poorly-shot RAW image (these images are about 1/3 of their full resolution):

OriginalShrpenedHDR

And another example:

OriginalSharpenedHDR

The HDR examples were not sharpened using any normal sharpening technique; the added sharpness was the result of Photoshop's image alignment during Merge to HDR.


UPDATE: Two years forward

It has been over two years since I originally posted this answer. Cameras have changed, tools have changed, and the power of RAW only becomes more evident as time continues to march on. With the advent of Sony Exmor sensors, low-ISO dynamic range in the shadows has become legendary. The Nikon D800 allows unparalleled shadow recovery that exhibits barely any noise at all and good color fidelity. Not owning a D800 myself, I can't provide any of my own samples. Fred Miranda, fame of fredmiranda.com, has provided one of the best examples of the power of RAW in the form of shadow recovery, comparing the D800 and the 5D III. The results in his examples are stunning to say the least.

For all the bad rap it tends to get these days in light of the D800, Canon shouldn't be forgotten. Before shadow recovery became a "thing", RAW was all about highlight recovery. Far more levels are allocated to highlights in a RAW image to start with, and the recovery power when dealing with overexposed highlights has always been pretty impressive. I encountered a series of photographs I'd taken of a dragonfly today that were terribly overexposed. I was sure they were all goners, as I'm sure almost anyone would:

OVEREXPOSED!

Just about everything in the shot above appears blown. The background, which was roughly an even mid-tone in real life, looks completely white. Imagine my surprise when I decided to at least give some exposure and highlight recovery a try. After -4 EV of exposure recovery and about 60% highlight recovery, I was shocked to see this:

Mind blowing recovery!

I've heard of such highlight recovery before, although generally only in discussions regarding medium format digital cameras (particularly Hasselblads, which have legendary highlight recovery.) Even the specular highlights in the dragonfly's wings seem to have retained considerable detail (100% highlight recovery detail below):

Recovery Detail

Since the photo was overexposed by about 4 stops, the shadows have full color fidelity, zero color noise, and hardly any random noise. With my previous examples, one of the commenters to this answer was able to do some recovery with a JPEG version of the image. With the original overexposed copy of this new sample, its highly doubtful that any amount of "recovery" could be performed on a JPEG. RAW is simply pure, unadulterated post-processing power... and it keeps getting better.

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    \$\begingroup\$ +1 nailed it on the head. JPEG is the end, RAW is the beginning, and if you shoot JPEG, you just gave up your control of the end to the decisions of a programmer who may just have a different view. \$\endgroup\$
    – Joanne C
    Aug 19, 2010 at 2:47
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks. Well, that's what I was essentially saying. What are some examples of why not allowing the camera to convert to JPEG itself can result in. Great example indeed :) \$\endgroup\$ Aug 19, 2010 at 3:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ Looking at the images I posted, I think the RAW version is actually Pre-HDR. The HDR version looks even better, as there is more tonality in the trees, and the sky is a bit brighter. However, despite that, I think the RAW version I posted still demonstrates its value over JPEG. \$\endgroup\$
    – jrista
    Aug 19, 2010 at 4:22
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    \$\begingroup\$ +1 but only after I finally found "the times when you botched it big ... that RAW's advantages ... start to shine". One thing that always bothers me is the argument, that one can "recover shadows/highlights" - this is only possible if they were removed by the In-Camera-JPG-processing, which mostly happens in situations with extreme lightings. If you "botched" the photo (e.g.: used a flash to fill in sinlight out but neglected to adjust aperture) RAW won't save you: the corresponding regions are whitened/blackened out on the sensor. \$\endgroup\$
    – Leonidas
    Nov 29, 2010 at 16:12
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    \$\begingroup\$ Why do you create pictures with different exposures fro the same RAW file first, then merge them into HDR? Can't HDR tools work on either the RAW file or perhaps a 16 or 32-bit TIFF generated from it directly? The information is all there. \$\endgroup\$
    – Szabolcs
    Jun 26, 2012 at 9:24
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Here's a concrete example of the advantages of shooting raw from a recent wedding. I always shoot raw+jpeg and use the jpegs to quickly sort through the photos afterwards. Here's a jpeg of the first dance that would have gone straight in the bin, except for the fact that I had very few shots of the first dance due to some very difficult conditions:

alt text

I decided to have a look at what could be recovered from the raw, and this shot went from almost being deleted to making it into the album. The image below shows the best I could do with the jpeg in photoshop on the left, and what could be produced easily from the raw file on the right:

alt text

I think that pretty much sums it up, for anyone shooting weddings I would strongly advise shooting raw as memory cards are cheap and you can't go back and reshoot if you get it wrong.

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    \$\begingroup\$ It's the hard disk space that can get expensive. And disks are cheap, too, arguably... but it does add up. Note: I'm fully in support of shooting all RAW, all the time. Just pointing out that there is a cost to that. :) \$\endgroup\$
    – lindes
    Dec 1, 2010 at 2:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ Even ignoring the clear improvement between the two wedding picture results, your final sentence above them sums it up for professional photographers: "the best I could do with the jpeg" will take you a considerable amount of time to achieve, but "what could be produced easily from the raw file" will take mere seconds, and time is money - critical when you're trying to churn out a batch of results for a paying customer. \$\endgroup\$
    – ClickRick
    Jan 6, 2016 at 13:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ There's nothing like setting the bride's hair on fire! \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Apr 6, 2016 at 8:23
  • \$\begingroup\$ I use removable media for my backups. I just got a Blu-Ray recorder. It will record CD-R,DVD-R, and Blu-Ray recordable disks. A CD is about 700 MB (not very useful.) A dual-layer DVD-R is 8.4 GB. A dual-layer Blu-Ray is 50 GB. You should be able to put a full wedding on a Blu-Ray. What I do is to create a disk image of my media (DVD or Blu-Ray) and mount it on my Mac. I copy my images from my memory cards directly onto the disk image. When it's full, I burn 2 copies, erase the image, and start over. \$\endgroup\$
    – Duncan C
    Jan 3, 2017 at 2:46
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I was a beginner at the time, took this picture of a very nice sunset. I was pretty disapointed by the picture...

enter image description here

Once I learned how to properly use Lightroom, I was able to get most of the details back from the original RAW file to get it to what I was really seeing in real life. enter image description here

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    \$\begingroup\$ Great example! Thanks. The depth of raw captures continuously surprise me to this day. \$\endgroup\$ Feb 28, 2012 at 22:06
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    \$\begingroup\$ Awesome example... I like your point on getting it what you were really seeing in real life. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 2, 2012 at 22:44
  • \$\begingroup\$ bad example. these pictures show the difference between editing vs not editing rather than raw vs jpeg - nearly the same result can be obtained by editing the jpeg \$\endgroup\$
    – szulat
    Nov 30, 2020 at 11:11
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I will add my own input. Doing this specifically isn't the reason to shoot RAW, it's just the primary reason why shooting RAW gives you fundamentally more headroom to work with when pushing pixels around.

I took this shot at a show a mate of mine was playing at (in this actual band). 1/60th ISO 1600 f/2.8 on a Canon 50D with EF-S 17-55mm F2.8 lens.

Here is a JPEG version with 100% fill light and 100% recovery and even some negative tone curving applied.

alt text

And here is the RAW version. There is mountains more accurate data available to use to adjust exposure, contrast and everything else.

alt text

For reference, here is the actual edit I did on this for the shoot.

alt text

For a final comparison. This is one reason why capturing in raw is so important. You can create seemingly HDR images out of a single raw file. The high contrast version is what Lightroom automatically applied and would be similar to what the camera would have produced.

Landscape

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    \$\begingroup\$ Do you have your JPEG and RAW examples back to front? The second example looks like an overdriven JPEG. \$\endgroup\$
    – davidryan
    Apr 16, 2012 at 2:19
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    \$\begingroup\$ The second is the RAW file in black and white with shadows boosted and contrast lowered to show the detail captured, whilst the first image is the same application but to an already processed JPEG file. You can see that the raw version still has all the detail left to use, even if you don't recover details from it (like in my final result). \$\endgroup\$ Apr 16, 2012 at 5:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ I like the examples shown of the band. The end result is beautiful with the clean black background and the lighting on the band people. Thanks for the demonstration using the original RAW that has that amount of captured data to manipulate. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 2, 2012 at 22:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ Ack. Did you just use a reduced color GIF to demonstrate what a JPEG looks like? \$\endgroup\$
    – Octopus
    Apr 25, 2013 at 21:23
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I capture everything both raw and jpeg, it gives you the best of both worlds.

Take this original jpeg:

original jpeg

Normally you would probably junk this shot, its totally overexposed. Correcting it in photoshop is not going to give you more detail: corrected in photoshop

Contrast this with the RAW shot, which was underexposed 1 and a half stops during post: RAW

You get significantly better texture and details. Using RAW saved a perfectly good shot from finding its way into the bin.

In particular notice the detail on the overexposed floor it is totally missing in the jpeg.

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    \$\begingroup\$ In fact, by "over exposing" you may have actually optimised the amount of information you captured in the raw file by exposing to the right. Did the histogram clip in the whites at all? \$\endgroup\$ Jan 9, 2011 at 23:04
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Nick I think only a tiny bit around the shoulder area. The ability of the 5d mark 2 to capture rich RAW information is amazing. I don't remember being able to push a full stop on my old 450d, without side effects. \$\endgroup\$ Jan 10, 2011 at 5:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ Indeed. One day I'll own a full frame, I hope. \$\endgroup\$ Jan 10, 2011 at 5:44
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    \$\begingroup\$ you may say it's overexposed, but I actually prefer the first one :) \$\endgroup\$
    – Udo G
    Dec 1, 2011 at 22:57
  • \$\begingroup\$ @UdoG - +1, completely agree that the first is better, exposure- and WB-wise. Sam - If the exposure of the third was pushed and had more neutral white-balance, it should surpass the first. \$\endgroup\$
    – b w
    Feb 23, 2012 at 17:16
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jrista pretty much summed up the whole difference, but just to clarify on the point of RAW headroom: JPEG is 8 bits, meaning 256 discrete levels per channel (RGB) which creates quite a wide range of color (16,777,216 discrete colors to be exact), but that pales in comparison to what RAW can potentially offer. The actual number of bits that a dSLR sensor captures varies, but the average hangs out around 12 bits, or 4096 discrete levels per channel which translates into 68,719,476,736 discrete colors. That's likely far and away beyond what the human eye can detect, but having pure volume gives you control over the final image that is way beyond anything you can do with a JPEG that comes out of the camera. Heck, even if your camera adds a mere bit to the capture, it still results in 134,217,728 colours, almost 10 times that of JPEG.

Anyways, once you realize what RAW gives you, the question of JPEG vs RAW becomes pretty simple to decide. Having said that, the trade-off is that you have to do the work yourself.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I understand the range of detail in a higher bit image. I also understand what RAW provides. @jrista provided a great example (what I was after) of what you really can do with the RAW data over a pre-baked JPEG. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 19, 2010 at 3:20
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    \$\begingroup\$ I realize, but others may view the question as well and wonder what the headroom is about, so sometimes the numbers can help explain what is seen. \$\endgroup\$
    – Joanne C
    Aug 19, 2010 at 3:26
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    \$\begingroup\$ I don't think headroom is related to color depth, but instead brightness. RAW is 12-bit, but it's linear. Jpeg is 8bit, but a non-linear curve, with roughly 11 stops of dynamic range (which arguably allows for very complex lighted images). RAW unquestionably has more headroom than JPEG, but it's not as simple as 12-bits vs 8-bits. \$\endgroup\$
    – Alan
    Aug 19, 2010 at 17:07
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Alan, I was careful to note that the bits are levels per channel and that, ultimately, translates to more color range. When shooting JPEG, the camera will reduce the 4096 (say, as typical) levels that is captured down to 256, so I do think it's basically down to that. \$\endgroup\$
    – Joanne C
    Aug 19, 2010 at 17:29
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    \$\begingroup\$ The conversion from RAW to JPEG not only reduces the number of bits but it changes from linear to logarithmic representation. Since our visual response in the eye is also logarithmic, you lose less from this process than the numbers suggest. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 20, 2010 at 4:39
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Here is a picture that I shot at Christmas of my 2 girlies and my nephew. In the original, the image was overexposed and the glare from the window made it hard to look at without being blinded! The first picture is the JPEG and the second is the edited RAW picture. I was able to decrease the exposure and increase the highlight recovery to bring my daughter's face out of the glare, and the white balance made the whole thing a little less glowy. Trying the same on the JPEG made everything have an odd color and didn't do much of anything about the glow.

I should add that I'm pretty new to Lightroom, so someone with quite a bit of experience may have been able to do more with the JPEG. But, that makes me even more convinced that shooting in RAW is the way to go, as even with just a few tweaks I am able to salvage a picture that otherwise would have gotten trashed.

JPEG Edited RAW

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Because RAW doesn't discard information through lossy compression (like JPEG does), you can often recover some smaller detail by manually processing the RAW file.

The example below provides an illustration of this:

enter image description here

Yes, this is a picture of my ear.

I had my camera set to record both a JPEG and a RAW file when I took the picture. The one on the left lacks some of the details present in the original image - especially the hair strands that hang over the earpiece on my glasses.

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Much of it is that I just find it easier to achieve the sort of look I prefer with Adobe software than the software in my Canon cameras. Trying to achieve what I like with the limited in-camera control I'm allowed is harder than getting it done in Adobe Camera Raw.

Where I notice a big difference is with my compact digital camera. Below is a snapshot from my Canon G7. I've installed CHDK so I can get raw. I have as much of the in-camera sharpening and noise reduction turned off as I can, and yet it's obvious that there is some serious detail destroying processing going on in-camera. Yeah, my version has more noise, but in all but the largest prints that will show as increased detail, while the NR and sharpening artifacts from the jpeg will show as nasty digital haze in prints.

G7 jpeg processed by camera

alt text


G7 raw processed by me

alt text


jpeg crop at 100% magnification

alt text


raw crop at 100% magnification

alt text

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    \$\begingroup\$ Maybe it's just my cheap uncalibrated monitor, but the raw image seems to have colors that are too bright (specifically the magenta dress), and is significantly more noisy/grainy than the JPG. \$\endgroup\$
    – davr
    Aug 19, 2010 at 18:34
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    \$\begingroup\$ It does look a bit vibrant, however there also appears to be more detail in the RAW version. The vibrancy can be adjusted with the RAW image, to better approximate what the JPEG delivers, without losing the extra detail. As for the noise, a slight adjustment to luminence noise in Lightroom 3 will clear that right up without eliminating useful detail. \$\endgroup\$
    – jrista
    Aug 19, 2010 at 18:41
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    \$\begingroup\$ The vibrancy is different. As has been said it can be adjusted to taste, even with the jpeg. This is a family snapshot for the grandparents, and they like bright color. In these examples what I am mostly concerned with is the smearing and artifacts in the fine detail such as the hair. The in-camera jpeg had all NR turned off, yet there is obviously some still going on. If I were concerned with the noise (it won't be noticeable at all in 8"x10"s) I could use NR from the out-of-camera software I own and achieve much better results than the in-camera processing. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 23, 2010 at 13:14
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    \$\begingroup\$ Methinks it is horribly oversaturated in comparison to the JPG. The JPG lost detail mostly because of the noise-removal, which you left out which leaves you with ... more noise. \$\endgroup\$
    – Leonidas
    Nov 29, 2010 at 16:04
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Ok, I'll just update my example a bit as it seems to be of the pixel-peeping and ambigous kind.


CHDK-RAW has been discovered by me for my Canon compact camera a while ago. Did shoot some High-ISO (400 is max for the used A610). Blown out highlights in JPG, croppedcrop jpg edts.

In the RAW there are some more details preserved (on my monitor I can still see the outlines of the drawn line on the parquet) but the color noise is not smoothed out and still present too: caveat 1 (CameraRAW does not like .CRW).

Later edit: dcraw does produce nice 48-bit-TIFF from the .CRW, but they do not have more details.

crop raw edts


I seem to love blown out pictures. Next one is from a wedding (D90), where I managed to take a photo of someone elses flash.

crop jpg wedding

Ok, this photo was truly lost ... but the brides face was nice. I took a look at the NEF with CameraRaw and really managed to squeeze out some more details. But it did not save the day, as you can see (the face was still comical enough to preserve in the end, but only as an oversaturated joke).

crop raw wedding


Now for the miracle of the many stops that can be recovered. Here I aimed for the silhouette and the shot was great. Of course, no detail in the face, I can see a tiny bit of the scarf in the JPG, but that is all.

crop jpg icehotel

As I preserved the NEF (D90), I did tinker around a bit. And you can really make out some outlines of the face. But the color noise was horrible, so I had to soft out all detail with denoising.

crop raw icehotel


My conclusion? I wanted to show ambigous examples, because RAW is no miracle-worker and additionally costs money for a decent converter and time. RAW can save a picture, if the in-camera-JPG-conversion seriously misjudged the picture, as sometimes the case with extremes. But these extremes - in my mind - better should be noticed and compensated in-camera beforehand, even the best case of RAW-application: wrong white balance. jristas example of retoning his picture does remind me of the colour-differences with a CPL turned by 90° on a sunny day:

crop GC1crop GC2

I myself shoot JPG+RAW, because the one worthy picture in hundreds of bad that might be saved this way does cost me ... today nothing really (fast card+camera). But I look at the RAW only after all the good JPG are sorted and edited and ready for the "customers" (amateur) ... and only if I have the time left to play around.

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    \$\begingroup\$ How does the new one look better? It looks almost exactly the same except with a lot more noise? \$\endgroup\$ Dec 26, 2010 at 23:08
  • \$\begingroup\$ Are these all shot on your compact? Because shooting RAW on a compact is a little pointless. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 29, 2010 at 22:13
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    \$\begingroup\$ No, only the first, the rest is D90. And as RAW from a compact too is neither compressed nor colourspace-compressed I wonder why you believe in a bigger difference for non-compact-cameras. \$\endgroup\$
    – Leonidas
    Jan 4, 2011 at 12:04
  • \$\begingroup\$ you are wrong about white balance, it has NO effect on sensor values, it's just 2 numbers which describe relative scaling factors for color channels, you can always "guess" them later and the result will be the same as you would get by setting it in camera \$\endgroup\$ Oct 30, 2014 at 17:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ @NickBedford raw on compacts is more needed, because the probability and impacts of an error are higher. for example, compacts have higher noise floor, and it adds up to quantization noise from in-camera conversion, so if you have underexposed picture from compact in JPEG, no luck. With raw, you can save something. It's a marketing "joke" that most compacts don't have raw saving ability. \$\endgroup\$ Oct 30, 2014 at 17:05
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To give you a short tip, When you shoot in jpeg, the camera automatically edit the image and adjust the settings according to the settings that you have set on it (ISO, White Balance, etc).

But when you shoot in RAW, the camera is just simply capturing the lights and all the editing is left for you for post processing. Editing is not cheating. You just allow yourself to fully control the image that you shoot. It allows you to add effects without damaging the image. Editing a jpeg picture is just merely damaging it, it is supposed to be the final state.

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    \$\begingroup\$ +1, but note that ISO is usually implemented at a lower level and will affect RAW as well. \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    Apr 4, 2013 at 11:29
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You can compare JPEG to an instant Polaroid picture. You press the button and get the end result on paper. You can use copy machine, or scanner and printer to adjust the brightness or contrast, but the end result will degrade quality even more.

RAW is like analogue photographer developing his film to negative, adjusting it before finally photo appearing on paper. Every developed paper picture can be a bit different as photographer used different methods, chemical ratios, lighting to develop them, but all of them will present high quality and details. The film (RAW) has much more data than the paper (JPEG) can hold at the end.

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A take from a novice :

RAW is magic - I use it in iPhoto and it does wonders within seconds, I don't even have PhotoShop on my Mac! Adding Shadows, adding lighting, hues,...

JPEG is, well nothing compared to RAw if you are serious about the end result of your photos.

RAW takes a whole lot of room than JPEGs but in this day and age when a 16GB SDCard (10X or more) can be had for less than $30, RAw is a clear winner!

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Which RAW formats does iPhoto have? I have one but I haven't really explored iPhoto's features. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 2, 2012 at 22:48
  • \$\begingroup\$ I am not aware of multiple RAW formats. I know for sure that iPhoto handles RAW photos like a champ. I switched to Aperture in the last year. Take a sample RAW photo and import into iPhoto, you can then make all kinds of changes since RAW has a lot more info than jpegs. \$\endgroup\$
    – ThinkCode
    Nov 5, 2012 at 14:40
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'll give it a go :). Again, thanks for making me aware of iPhoto's capability to handle RAW. I just use iPhoto to store all my photos by event and make adjustments. I've only been using JPEG. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 5, 2012 at 19:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ No problem! Ask away if you have any questions - we have such a wonderful community here! \$\endgroup\$
    – ThinkCode
    Nov 5, 2012 at 19:46
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Here are several examples from various shooting scenarios in challenging light.

In-camera produced JPEG:
enter image description here

Edited JPEG using the above JPEG as the source:

enter image description here

Edited CR2 file of the same image:

enter image description here

For more about how this image was produced, please see: Lots of noise in my hockey pictures. What am I doing wrong?


RAW file with Canon's "neutral" in-camera processing applied using Canon's Digital Photo Professional (ver. 3). This is pretty much identical to what an out of camera JPEG would have looked like:

enter image description here

The same .CR2 file after extensive processing and tone mapping using the raw image data:

enter image description here

For more about how this image was produced, please see this answer to: How to make camera LCD show true RAW data in JPG preview and histogram?


Three versions of the same image. The one on the left is an unedited conversion of the raw image opened using default settings. The one in the middle is a color corrected conversion made using the raw image data. The one on the right is an attempt at color correcting a JPEG version of the image on the left.

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For more about how this image was produced, please see: Why can software correct white balance more accurately for RAW files than it can with JPEGs?


Straight-out-of-camera JPEG under difficult LED stage lighting that is now quite common in small bars and nightclubs:

enter image description here

Color correction using the "eyedropper" color picker tool applied to the jpeg:

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Color correction using the "eyedropper" color picker tool, as well as simple contrast, highlight, shadow, and saturation adjustments, applied to the raw image data:

enter image description here

For more about how this image was produced,please see: This answer to Why and how capturing RAW image instead of JPEG helps with editing

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I would like to answer by way of analogy.
RAW is the cow.
(Everything is there in the file)

JPEG is a platter of swedish meatballs.
(Someone has taken the raw material and made something from it.)

Many things about the two might even be identifiable still. The fact remains that the process is not reversible. The nature of the original is less versatile as the original. You're comparing apples to oranges.

I don't mean to be glib. I was trying to find a completely non-technical argument unclouded with jargon or subjective interpretation of "better."

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    \$\begingroup\$ Hmmm. Funny, but I think a little too extreme. \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    May 7, 2016 at 1:30
  • \$\begingroup\$ It should be noted that a beginner might have a hard time creating decent meatballs from a cow ... \$\endgroup\$ Jun 5, 2017 at 12:28
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The bottom line is RAW is a file produced by your camera that contains 100% of the information your camera sees. JPG is a file produce by your camera were your camera's computer (brain) takes that same 100% of data and discards (deletes) a certain percentage of that data in order to make a compressed (smaller) file. Do you want your camera's brain to discard/delete a significant portion of the data before you ever get a chance to look at the file? or do you want to see all the data and be able to make whatever changes your brain thinks is necessary or expresses your artistic vision? Will you be eating the meatballs your camera produced or will you butcher the cow and yourself and eat filet Mignon?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ ...or are you liable to drastically overcook the filet mignon, and would have done better to let your handy James Beard-award winning chef do the cooking for you? theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2012/… \$\endgroup\$
    – inkista
    May 7, 2016 at 21:44
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    \$\begingroup\$ It matters not, I can cook it 1000 different ways, if I want it burnt or if I want it rare, with béarnaise sauce or blackened. i still have the original raw file as shot in camera. I get to choose, and I can choose one or all options. \$\endgroup\$
    – Alaska Man
    May 7, 2016 at 23:50
  • \$\begingroup\$ From the comments in the link posted by @inkista: "The flip side is that a good Raw converter at home (perhaps from the very same camera company) is like having the 5-star Michelin chef living in at home listening to our every culinary desire?" It also allows the more experienced cook today to go back and redo dishes she cooked back in 2008 when she wasn't so experienced. \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Nov 30, 2020 at 9:43

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