WHATS the REAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RAW and JPEG?
Every now and then on a forum someone will ask, “What’s the real difference between RAW and JPEG?” What will we actually see in our images and prints? Is there always a clear visual advantage to shooting RAW all the time? Answering these questions isn’t that easy (unless you own a company that sells RAW conversion software). There is a tangled mass of nonessential technical information related to this subject. A little of it is even interesting! But really, one of the amateur’s biggest challenges, if not the biggest, is learning how to creatively use image-editing tools. If we shoot RAW we’ll start off by editing in conversion software. If we shoot JPEG we can load our shots into capable image-editing software that supports layers. Then we can see what needs to be done to selectively make the best use of the image’s content, tones and colour. (JPEGs and TIFFs can be edited in some RAW conversion software too.) Personal decisions have to be made. Should we shoot RAW and edit the image f
