Few photography debates generate more heat and less light than RAW versus JPEG. The zealots on both sides are wrong, because the correct answer is a question: what happens to your photos after you take them? Here is the honest breakdown.
What RAW actually is: the unprocessed sensor data — every scrap of tonal and color information your camera captured, before any decisions get baked in. The files are three to five times larger and look flat and dull until edited, because they are ingredients, not a finished meal.
What JPEG actually is: the camera’s own edit of that data — contrast, color, sharpening, and white balance applied according to its recipe, then compressed. It is a finished dish: convenient, immediately shareable, and largely unchangeable. Push a JPEG edit too far and it falls apart in blotches and bands.
The case for RAW: recovery latitude. A RAW file holds two to three stops of hidden highlight and shadow detail, meaning an accidentally dark file or a half-blown sky is rescueable. White balance can be repainted losslessly. For paid work, difficult light, or any image that might someday hang on a wall at thirty inches, RAW is professional insurance that costs only disk space.
The case for JPEG: velocity and volume. If your photos flow straight to family chats and social feeds without an editing stop, RAW is friction that gains you nothing. Sports parents shooting eight hundred frames a game and travelers with one memory card have legitimate JPEG lives. Modern in-camera processing is genuinely excellent.
The grown-up answer for most enthusiasts: RAW+JPEG when stakes or uncertainty are high — you get the instant file today and the negatives forever — and JPEG-only for high-volume casual shooting. Storage is cheap; re-living a once-in-a-lifetime sunset with clipped highlights is expensive. Choose per occasion, not per ideology.