What is the benefits of taking (or saving) digital photos in RAW format vs. jpeg?

Question

Is RAW a way of saving the photos or is it part of the taking of the photos?

Answer 1

RAW is a format that uses absolutely no compression. It is what was saved from the CCD or CMOS sensor before any processing is applied.
Thus it is uncontaminated by any artifacts (other than the interpolation used to fix the color mix).

Answer 2

To answer your inquiry most directly, the benefit of RAW over JPG (or JPEG) is no compression will be applied to the image when it is saved to the camera's memory card. As mentioned by others, pixels will be discarded by an algorithm to make the image smaller thus taking up less space (compression) on your media. RAW is a way of saving your images and must be set on your camera, however be prepared for the size that your images will become. Just a rough estimate: a 3 Meg JPG can easily become a 25 Meg or greater RAW file. There are some added workflow steps involved to work with this format, but if you're looking to make sharp enlargements or 16x20 or larger then this is the way to go. For your everyday snapshots JPG is just fine. One final point, just remember to save your originals in a separate directory on your computer and perform a "Save As" when editing. This is because "every time" you do a save to a JPG it gets compressed thus tossing out more pixels. So by maintaining your originals in their own directory you'll always have pristine images to work with.

Answer 3

RAW is a file format like JPEG or TIFF. It is the "raw" data from the camera's sensor. If you take a picture and save it in RAW format, the file will have all the picture data the camera's sensor can generate. If you take the same picture in JPEG format, the camera will compress the data from the sensor -- in effect, throwing out a large amount of picture data. Though you will probably not notice any immediate difference between these two pictures, if you try to make big enlargements, or try to enlarge small details in your picture, you will find that the RAW file will usually make a better picture. The trade-off is that RAW files are much larger than JPEG files and will take longer to load and save as well as take up more room on your hard drive. TIFF files are essentially the same as RAW files.

Answer 4

As Heinz said RAW is uncompressed while jpeg compresses everytime you save it, and will add little artifacts in your images. I personally like TIF (sometimes TIFF) format, it's also uncompressed and a little more common, and easier to work with than RAW. TIF stands for Tagged Interchange Format.

Answer 5

"They" say that RAW gives you the maximum flexibility to work with your image, just about as if you had a color negative to work with. Many others say that they've been there - done that and don't feel that it's worth all the hoops you have to jump through for a minimal advantage. PopPhoto had a brief article comparing the two formats just 3 or 4 months ago:

http://www.popphoto.com/popularphotographyfeatures/2841/raw-vs-jpeg.html

Here's one from American Photo:
http://www.popphoto.com/howto/2196/jpeg-vs-raw-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-explained.html