When You Want The RAW Deal

Before we get to explaining RAW, it's useful to talk a bit about how computers store data.

When a computer wants to store data, it stores it using specific formats, so it can easily read the data later. Some formats are for word processing documents. There are also formats for databases, spreadsheets, videos, and countless other types of data you might work with. The formats we're concerned with here are for photos. Just like there are many formats for word processing documents (such as OpenDocument, WordPerfect, Word, etc.), there are also many formats for photos.

A digital camera is a highly-specialized computer, with a lens and image sensor attached to it. Once the lens and image sensor capture a photo, the computer in the digital camera needs to store the photo data in a certain format so the photo can be viewed later.

A very common format for computers to store photo data is JPEG. It's not perfect for all purposes, but no format could ever be perfect. JPEG offers a good set of features and extremely broad support, so it has grown to be a "standard" way to store, view, and exchange photos. (By "standard" I just mean common, by the way. Using it to mean something "official" is another matter entirely.) JPEG files often have a name ending in .jpeg or simply .jpg (the shorter version without the 'e' is more common).

One of the problems with the JPEG format is that it doesn't store all of the photo data. Some data is literally thrown away. Luckily, this is adjustable, so you can control the quality of the image by controlling how much data is thrown away. But no matter how you adjust it, a JPEG will not store all of the data that the camera captured.

(Image credit: Grafixar / morgueFile.com)

Most digital cameras can store photo data in JPEG format. In fact, many digital cameras only use the JPEG format, giving the owner no choice in the matter, although sometimes the owner may be able to adjust the quality of the images via a camera setting that controls how much data is thrown away when creating the JPEG image files.

Not everyone is satisfied with throwing away data. Some want to have everything that the camera can provide. For that reason, some cameras offer the ability to store photo data in a special format that includes everything. Each camera maker is able to decide the nitty-gritty details of that format (in fancy words, that means the formats are "proprietary"), but in general these formats are called RAW.

If your camera can create RAW photo files, it can also probably create JPEG photo files, due to the popularity of the JPEG format. The camera also probably came with software that will read and manipulate the RAW files and allow you to save your photos in JPEG and/or other formats.

So, which should you choose?

What you choose depends on what you're doing with your photos. If you're taking family snapshots at a birthday party, you may want the speed and simplicity of using the JPEG format. When you find that the content of the photos is more important than the technical quality of the photos, JPEG may be your best choice.

However, if you're taking photos for artistic and/or professional reasons, you may want to make sure your camera is storing all of the data, by using the camera's RAW format. You'll still be able to create JPEG files for exchanging with other people, but you'll have all of the photo data to work with, right from the camera's image sensor. This will give you the maximum control and flexibility to ensure that not only is the content good, but the technical quality is as best it can be.

If your camera is going to be used for many purposes, some casual and some not, then you might want to look for a RAW+JPEG option. This means the camera will create two files for every photo, one in JPEG format and one in the camera's RAW format. This takes more space on your memory card (or other storage media), but it gives you simple files to work with (JPEG) and all of the photo data (RAW) all the time.