Reasons Why You Should Be Shooting in RAW

When I first got into photography, I was only 14-years-old. I had no mentor, no forums to browse, no clue to what any of the jargon meant, and really no idea of what I was even doing. It honestly all felt so foreign to me. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to take photos. After 16 years of gaining experience, wisdom, and a better understanding of things, I want to be able to help others grow in their photography journey.

Whether you are just getting started or looking to expand your current knowledge, you probably ran into the never-ending RAW vs JPEG format conversation at some point. I am hoping that this blog post will help add clarity and a better understanding for you.

Disclaimer: I want to state that as we compare RAW vs JPEG formats throughout this blog, it is regarding the camera formatting, not the formatting you decide to use after saving your photo in editing.

Before we dive too far into today's blog, let's make sure we have the basics down. Firstly, we need to understand what is happening inside the camera when we hit the shutter button because a lot of things are happening, and fast at that. The fundamental key is understanding that your sensor takes in a load of light and turns it into a lot of data. So keep in mind, that you're not necessarily capturing images, you are capturing data. With that in mind, let's move on a little deeper.

RAW mode is basically your camera taking all of the data that it can from the sensor and saving all of it, every last byte, for you to utilize later in post-production (editing). When you shoot in RAW, your camera will still show a photo in your playback setting just like normal, but you are not actually looking at the RAW file itself. You are looking at a JPEG preview that your camera is generating for you from the data from your RAW file. It's important to understand that. So in a bit more detail, consider it like this — it is reading the data and applying a "base", middle of the road, interpretation of that data to show you what you got, but it is only taking a single section/slice of the available data to generate that preview. There is a lot of data being left out that is preserved for you to see and make use of for later in your editing.

When you shoot JPEG, your camera is doing the same thing by taking a slice of the data to generate a JPEG. However, instead of saving all of the extra data like RAW does for post-production, it is actually throwing that extra data away and dumping it all immediately. Basically this means that the data is either being compressed to form your JPEG or dumped because your camera is now doing a lot of the processing work for you so your photos look more finished straight from your camera. Because you are able to get a more finished look straight from your camera this way, using JPEG is always a simpler and more popular route for the ones who are just starting out. However, the downside of this is now when you go into editing, you can only work with the data that is available only within that JPEG.

Now that you're familiar with the basic defining characteristics between the two formats, let's take it a step further. Just like with anything, there are always pros and cons. In this case, the pros and cons often regard file size, post-processing, dynamic range, and white balance. If you are new to this or already feeling a bit overwhelmed, we will put proper terms and jargon aside. Also, I will try my best to break it down as simply as I can.

No matter what our project is, when it comes to the file size of our photos, we are often at the mercy of our SD card's storage capacity. If we are limited in storage, shooting in RAW might not always be our friend. Not only does the RAW file retain all the uncompressed and unmodified data captured to produce our viewable image, it also contains both image metadata and camera sensor metadata. Your image metadata includes your exact information about exposure, aperture, shutter, and ISO settings. Your camera sensor metadata includes sensor characteristics, ICC profile, and attributes of the color filter array. Because you are retaining so much data per photo, it can eat up your storage pretty quickly, but don't let this discourage you from giving it a try.

I do want to make a side note that because RAW files are data-heavy and often large files, some camera manufacturers have started creating alternatives like Compressed RAW or Lossless Compressed RAW. These two formats are very different. Compressed RAW discards some of the image data. Lossless Compressed RAW does not discard any data; instead, it packs the data like a ZIP file. Compatible post-processing software will allow you to decompress that data from that ZIP like file and expand the file/data back to its original size. Compressed RAW cannot be expanded later. So some of that data wil be lost for good, but you will still have a little bit more data to work with in post-production compared to JPEG.

If you are shooting in JPEG, your file sizes will not be as large as they will be if shooting in RAW. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of your data is either being compressed or thrown away immediately when you are shooting in JPEG. So, if you are short on storage, JPEG might be your best friend. Just keep in mind, that because of the lack of data to work with in editing, you might not be able to get the highest quality photo as you would if you were shooting in RAW.

Next on our pros and cons list, post-processing. To dive further into what was mentioned above, shooting in JPEG can sometimes hurt us in the post-production/editing. With us not being able to have all of our data as we would in RAW, we can't always fully go into our editing software and fix our photos where we did not always have the right settings. Sometimes our photos can be a little over/under exposed, the colors aren't popping enough, and so on, but because we no longer have the full data to open the information up to fine tune our photo freely like we would in RAW, we are slightly hindered and constrained. We are now having to work within the limits of the compressed JPEG data file and sometimes we might not be able to fully work on areas or get the highest quality photo. Working with a RAW file in editing sometimes allows you to have a little grace for those photos.

It also gives a little grace when you have to deal with your dynamic range. In photography, your dynamic range is the contrast ratio between the darkest and brightest color tones that a camera can capture in a single exposure. Working with a RAW file can be a little more forgiving because it helps you have the ability to recover shadows and highlights in editing without bringing in the grainy noise, which is sometimes associated with high ISO settings. Shooting in JPEG, unless your camera is generous, you often aren't able to recover those shadows or highlights without it going super grainy because that data is either compressed or dumped.

The same with your white balance. Great white balance and color are essential to an amazing photo. With your JPEG files, your white balance is already balanced. This is a big part of why most JPEG file photos look more finished straight from the camera compared to their RAW file counterparts. Think of it this way — when you shoot JPEG, the white balance is applied to the image and you can't just easily choose another option. With RAW, the white balance is still recorded, but because you have way more data, you can make adjustments easier and faster, with better results.

The bottom line of this post is shooting in RAW gives you more data to work with and more control, but you have to put more time into that work. If you are looking for speed, or you want a basic point-and-shoot experience that has photos ready to use straight from the camera, JPEG might be a better option than RAW.

I hope this blog post has helped you have a better grasp and understanding of shooting in RAW and JPEG. If you are still on the fence on the route you should go, I encourage you to play around with both formattings and go the route that feels more comfortable to you.

Reminder: Don't get too caught up in logistics, terminology, formatting, "what the professionals are doing", and so forth. Pursue and grow into your own style and muse. Now go expand those wings and happy photo taking!