Difference Between Shooting Photographs in JPG and RAW

Thomas shares some useful insight on RAW vs JPG mode available in DSLR cameras.

JPG - When you shoot in JPG, your camera takes a photo and then processes it to a JPG file. It uses automatic settings for things like contrast and color temperature (why some white lights in a photo are bluish and some are yellowish), brightness, etc. Sometimes these automatic settings are perfect. But most of the time they are not.

RAW - When you shoot in RAW, your camera saves the equivalent of a digital negative that you can later process in Bridge/Photoshop’s “Camera RAW” feature. Here, rather than use the default settings of your digital camera, you have a much wider range of possibilities. Is the photo’s contrast sort of dull? Then you can bump it up. Is the night sky too yellowish or sulfuric? Then cool the image down and get a better blue tone to your sky by lowering the photo’s color temperature. Link