RAW or JPEG?

Question: RAW or JPEG!?

Why and why not!?
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Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

when shooting sports pics for media I used to use JPEG however when I did a commercial shoot, it was raw all the way!. With raw I can change the white balance at a later stage with no loss in image quality, fine adjustments to exposure can be made, and I have full control over my final image!. If you go to the trouble to get a DSLR to have control over your image, why limit your control with the image format!. Plus with JPEG, everytime the image is edited, the quality drops!.

With raw and a program such as Lightroom, you have the ultimate control, particularly when adding effects to your images such as a X process look, sepia, et al!. All cameras take an image as a raw file but not all cameras output that raw image!. Alot of cameras take that raw file and process the image on board the camera according to how you have set your camera up ie!. vivid, b&w, etc!.

JPEG was always the choice when time was of the essence but with new software, there is no excuse not to shoot raw!. I now shoot everything in raw!. Another advantage is 16bit images vs JPEG's 8bit and also capture sharpening!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Raws biggest advantage is image quality!. It's the image your camera captured without any manipulation!. It's file size is both good and bad!. Good because it's the best for post capture manipulation, bad because it's very big, and takes up hard disk space!. Jpeg is just the opposite!. Way smaller file size, but you lose a lot of image information, and every time you open an image and close it, you loose more!. It's possible to open and close a favorite image so many times that you start to get white spots, or artifacts in your image!. Basically where the jpeg format has removed so much information that there's nothing left, and all you have are these white voids in your image!. That's why it's called a lossy image format!. If you shoot jpeg, if your camera allows it, set its file size to it's biggest setting!. It may say file size or maybe image quality, but get the biggest size you can stand, so you loose a minimum of information, and then get your images on a CD first thing, so you have a image file that won't loose anything each time you open it!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

if you have the option i say raw
raw offers you a better size photo!. if you want the option of printing large you can, but if you use jpeg it only gives you about a 95 dpi which looks ok on a computer but horrible on prints!. and raw gives your picture a completely different color!. it picks up the colors more true
if you are only going to use it on the internet then jpag is fine
people also use jpeg because it allows you to take more pictures on the same size card then raw will
and it also depends is your computer will open and let you edit raw files

i use raw plus on my canon and it takes 2 pics at the same time (one is in raw and one is in jpeg,but you dont know this till you open it on the computer!. i use adobe bride and i get both so i can pick which one i like better)Www@QuestionHome@Com

Depends on what you are doing and how much knowledge you have in both!. Jpeg is hard to beat, so unless you need the options that RAW provide then just stick to jpeg!. It is a great default file that can still be altered with photoshop or the like!.
RAW gives you some functions that you can't get from jpeg, but unless you need it I wouldn't use it!. You need to be able to understand and alter in great detail your files to get any good from it!. As an example: a basic word processing like word, works for most people just fine!. For those that need and can remember all the commands and hot-keys to get all the bells and whistles out of it Wordperfect is far superior!. But do most people need,want, or remember how to utilize all the functions!?-No, just a basic program with easy menu driven is just fine!. I hope this analogy makes sense!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

You have more controll over raw!. When you take jpeg photos the camera does all the adjustments therefor you dont have as much to work with but if you use raw you get alot more to work with!. Alot of pro's use raw!.

Once you get raw photos you can process them and adjust them and then convert them to jpg!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

JPEG is more common and offers 100 levels of quality for each color "bittage" (sorry; my brain is fried)!. You can use 24-bit color, 8-bit color (!?) or 8-bit grayscale!. I'm a computer geek and I don't use RAWs very often!.

MS Paint doesn't offer RAW as an option for saving files, but it offers JPEG as an option!. Most other photo editors are the same way!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

This says it all!.

http://www!.adobe!.com/products/photoshop/!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

yesWww@QuestionHome@Com