So, you have your digital dslr. You know how to measure the white balance, and you know how to set the exposition right. Do you? I am almost certainly sure that in 99% of the cases you don’t. Just like me. Just like most of the semi-pros out there. Like most of the lazy people. But you have RAW images to help you. What is RAW?

Let’s imagine that you want to cook a soup. Chicken soup. You have two ways: you can buy a stock cube which will substitute the meat and some of the vegetables. You can buy a piece of the chicken and some fresh vegetables on the market. In both of these cases, you can boil it and you’ll have a chicken soup. Which one will be better? Well, you don’t need to be Jamie Oliver to examine this. Now please imagine, that the stock cube is the software embedded in your camera - this bit of programming code which will digest all the fresh data captured by the camera sensor, “optimize it” and spit out the JPEG file - your final picture, the soup. And the chicken is the same fresh data - but it’s you who will decide how to cook it :)

Ok, let’s leave the chicken-carrot rubbish behind. So what exactly this RAW is, you will ask? The answer is simple. RAW is pure, almost un-manipulated, clean data coming straight from the sensor. It’s like a digital negative (in fact, one of RAW specifications is even called “Digital Negative”). It’s something which comes from most of the dslr cameras as .CRW file (Canon), .NEF (Nikon), .MRW (Minolta) and so on. It is compressed with the loseless algorithm (unlike JPEG - this means that nothing is missing from the information registered in the first instance) and it is not processed by your camera software, which means it’s also probably looking like sh*t before you’ll edit it with a RAW processing software :)

With RAW you can manipulate white balance, sharpness, exposition, colour and contrast much more easily than with JPEG - due to the fact of its loseless compression (look on the previous paragraph). Any disadvantages? Yeah, a few: files are bigger than JPEG, so less continuous shooting, they need a special editing software (there’s plenty of free, very good alternatives for multiple platforms though), and most of all: editing RAW needs more than basic understanding of image acquiring and processing techniques. But it’s the closest to the old fashioned, fully controlled and totally super-duper analogue photography you will ever get with your digital camera.

So attack! Forget JPEG, shoot RAW. And discover whole new world.