So what's all this RAW talk in reference to digital photography?  Seems every time there's a camera review, or a technique that's discussed, RAW is mentioned in some way.  So what is it?  Why all the hype?  I'm here to quickly answer these questions for you - hopefully it'll prompt you to get your feet wet and give RAW a try.  It'll change the way you  approach digital photography.

It's probably best to think of the RAW format as the digital version of a photo captured on film.  It requires processing before it can be viewed and used in some way.  RAW captures a great deal more data in each shot, than in a typical JPG capture.  When you get back to your computer, you need software - usually supplied by your camera's manufacturer, but more on this in a minute - to process the large amount of data and produce a viewable photo. 

So what data are we talking about here?  Colors, hues, lighting, and shadows are all elements that are included in a RAW image file.  You can adjust the levels and values of all these elements, tweaking your shot until it's just the way you like it.  You may be thinking, "But I can Photoshop my JPGs just fine."  Well, sort of.  JPG is already a processed (by the camera software) and compressed image file.  It's ready to go immediately.  So when you edit that JPG, you are removing, and/or completely altering the pixels that make up the photograph.  In RAW, you are picking and choosing the values you desire from the many differing values available - then you can save it as a JPG and go from there. It's more technical than that, but this will do for our explanation here.

So of course, more data in the RAW image means a large image file.  For example, my Canon 350D (8 megapixels) produces 2-3 megabyte JPGs and 8-10 megabyte RAW files at the highest quality settings. So use them sparingly, or make sure your media card can handle the added file size before you go on photo safari.

RAW is actually not the file format - it describes a range of file formats that work the same way.  Each camera manufacturer creates their own RAW format, and actually the RAW formats differ from camera model to camera model.  It makes for quite a mess of differing RAW formats when it comes to trying to sort them all out.  But as I mentioned earlier, the camera manufacturer usually provides a software package to handle your camera's RAW files.  Adobe Photoshop CS2 has a RAW plugin called Camera RAW and it works quite nicely.   If you're not crazy about shelling out for Adobe Photoshop CS2, RawShooter is a decent alternative.

Adobe also have a utility that converts all RAW formats into a single, srandard-like format known as Adobe Digital Negative, or DNG.  This is a highly recommended option to use, so 5 years from now, should your camera's RAW file format become end-of-life'd, you've got a 'universal' solution in the DNG.  There's a project known as Open RAW that's working for RAW standardization.  But that's a whole other story...

There's a lot to the whole RAW thing.  Lots more than I've covered here.  But this gives you the gist of many of the things it has to offer you as a digital photographer.  You may still be thinking that this is more hassle than you need.  Depending on what you shoot, you may be right.  But the first time you see how you can save a poorly exposed image by tweaking the RAW file, you'll be hooked.  Of course it's always best to shoot the image as precisely as possible initially, but at first, it's a nice aid for those still learning.

Got RAW questions?  Email me, or ask in the comments.