What is a RAW file?

Most people who’ve taken an interest in digital photography beyond hitting the shutter button will, at some point early on, wonder about RAW files. Most digital cameras capture photos in JPEG format for ease of use, however many feature-rich cameras, especially DSLR cameras can also record your photos in RAW. The praises of shooting RAW are sung by amateur and professional photographers alike… so what is a RAW file?

Remember negatives? RAW files are digital negatives.

To understand RAW files, think of how a traditional camera captures light on film. Film cameras produce negatives, which serve as the original version of the photo. By processing those negatives, a photographer can make all sorts of prints. RAW files are similar to photographic negatives, in that a RAW file records the exact light information captured by the camera’s sensor at the time of exposure. Instead of converting this information into color and saving it as a JPEG file, the camera stores it as-is, and leaves post-production up to the photographer.

RAW files leave room for improvement.

A certain amount of work can be done on JPEG images, especially with versatile software like Photoshop, but RAW files are much more flexible. Unlike a JPEG, a RAW file has not had properties such as white balance, brightness, or contrast committed. With software like Adobe Bridge and Adobe Photoshop, all of these elements are under your control. You can even adjust the photo’s exposure. Post-production on a RAW file can resurrect a shot that wasn’t captured quite right at the moment you hit the shutter button.

After all is said and done, you’ll export your processed photos to JPEG format for e-mailing, printing, and sharing.

More Software for Managing RAW Files

Adobe Photoshop is the industry standard for photo editing, but is also very expensive. Fortunately, Picasa (Windows/Mac) and iPhoto (Mac) support RAW files. You won’t get the power and flexibility of a professional software suite like Photoshop, but Picasa and iPhoto are both free (well, technically you paid for iPhoto when you purchased Mac OS X).

If you do have money to invest, you might want to consider Apple’s Aperture software as well as Adobe Photoshop.

So why shoot JPEG?

Like I said, the main reason digital cameras record in JPEG is for ease of use. RAW is great for anyone who’s serious about photo quality, but the casual photographer may find RAW post-production a bit too time-consuming. JPEG photos can go straight from your camera into an e-mail or a web page, while RAW requires you to hit the digital dark room first. To decide between RAW and JPEG, you must consider which format suits your needs best. Do you want to snap some casual shots and send them out quickly, or do you want to go after the best quality possible? RAW files are much bigger than JPEGS — do you require those digital negatives, or do you need to fit as many photos as possible on your memory card?

How I Do It

The flexibility and forgiveness of RAW appeals to me, so I almost always shoot in RAW. I’ll import the RAW files to my computer, use Adobe Bridge to sort through them, and then convert the keepers to JPEG. Those JPEGs go into iPhoto, and the original RAW files get backed up and stashed away in case they’re ever needed again.

Further Reading

If you’d like to know more about RAW files, photography site The Luminous Landscape has published an extremely in-depth article called “RAW Files Explained“. The article goes into the technical details or RAW files, and gives a comprehensive list of pros and cons for both RAW and JPEG.