Should I shoot RAW or JPEG?

The choice is often presented as amateur versus serious. It is not. It is whether you want the camera to make the interpretation decisions or to keep them for yourself, and both are legitimate answers depending on what you do with the pictures afterwards.

Step by step

1. Understand what RAW is.The unprocessed readings from the sensor, with white balance, contrast, sharpening and colour recorded as instructions rather than applied. Nothing is discarded. It looks flat and dull until interpreted, because it has not been interpreted yet.
2. Understand what JPEG is.The camera applies its own white balance, tone curve, colour profile, sharpening and noise reduction, then compresses the result, throwing away data judged invisible. It is a finished picture and it is a much smaller file.
3. Know what you gain in RAW.Several stops more recoverable highlight and shadow, white balance that can be changed after the fact with no penalty, far more room to push colour and tone before the file breaks up, and better results from modern noise reduction.
4. Know what you gain in JPEG.Files a fifth of the size or less, far longer bursts before the camera stalls, no editing step, immediate sharing, and a picture that already looks good because the manufacturer's processing is genuinely well judged.
5. Pick by what you will do next.Family snaps, events you will share the same evening, a run of hundreds of frames, anything going straight to a phone — JPEG. Landscapes, portraits, anything in difficult light, anything you will print or edit — RAW.
6. Use RAW plus JPEG when you are unsure.The camera writes both. You get an immediate usable picture and keep the option to go back. Storage is cheap and this is the right default for a trip you cannot repeat.
7. Set the picture profile even in RAW.The profile does not change the RAW data but it does set the embedded preview and the initial interpretation in most software, and it shows on the camera's histogram — so a very contrasty profile will make you expose differently. A neutral profile gives the most honest histogram.
8. Have a plan for the files.RAW files are larger, need software that can read your camera's version, and are not viewable everywhere. Decide where they live and how they are backed up before you fill a card with them.

Tips

• If you never edit, RAW gives you nothing except larger files. There is no quality benefit in an unedited RAW.
• White balance is the single most convincing argument for RAW — an orange indoor photo is a two-second fix in RAW and a compromise in JPEG.
• Compressed or lossless-compressed RAW options on modern cameras save substantial space with no practical penalty.

Common mistakes

• Shooting RAW because it sounds more professional — It creates an editing obligation for every photograph. People who shoot RAW without editing end up with an unmanageable library of flat files and eventually stop taking pictures.
• Assuming RAW fixes exposure mistakes — It extends the margin by a couple of stops; it does not rescue a clipped sky or a shadow that recorded nothing but noise. Exposure still has to be roughly right.

Alternatives

• RAW plus JPEG: Both written for every frame. Immediate usable files plus full latitude, at the cost of card space and a slightly slower buffer.
• HEIF or HEIC: A more efficient finished format than JPEG with more colour depth. Better quality per megabyte, still a baked interpretation, and less universally supported.
• Phone ProRAW or expert RAW: A RAW file that has already had multi-frame merging applied, so it keeps phone-level noise handling while leaving colour and tone adjustable. Large files, and worth it for photographs you will edit.

Questions people ask