RAW vs JPEG? Which is better to develop my skills as a photographer?
If possible, shoot both RAW and JPEG as this will give you the greatest flexibility.
RAW Image Files
RAW files are the digital “negatives” and contain all the data that your camera’s sensor sees when taking the photo.
This is both a good thing and a bad thing.
The good thing is that all the sensor data is captured but at the expense of a lot of file space. On average, your RAW file equates to about 1 megabyte per megapixel.
So, if your camera is a 12 megapixel camera, you are going to get about a 12 megabyte RAW file.
This is an important consideration to make if you are tight on file space and hard drive space.
Another important consideration to keep in mind is that the processing of RAW data is different than JPEG data.
JPEG
JPEG files from your camera, on the other hand, are processed by the settings you enabled in your camera.
That is to say, you have let your camera make decisions for you regarding white balance and exposure.
JPEG files are also considerably smaller than RAW files. A JPEG setting of “Fine” typically is about 4 time smaller in file size than the RAW file it came from.
A JPEG “Normal” setting is about 8 times smaller than a RAW file. And a JPEG “Basic” setting is about 16 times smaller.
Summary
RAW files give the greatest flexibility after-the-fact. JPEG files aren’t as flexible.
If you are good with exposures and white balance and don’t think you need to do much post-processing, shoot with JPEG.
If you think that you want to post-process your photos (using Adobe Lightroom), shoot in RAW.
Most dSLRs should give an option of shooting in both RAW+JPEG.
If your camera can do this, then you can have a nice balance between post-processing flexibility. However, this will take up even more room on your memory card!
Love your camera. Love yourself. Love your photos.
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