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The RAW file format contains untouched raw pixel information that comes straight from sensors of a digital camera. In digital photography it is the equivalent of a negative from traditional film-based photography. Digital Cameras process the RAW file by changing it to a full colour JPEG or TIFF image file that is stored on a memory card for a camera, but it is usually possible to retain the original RAW file too. Generally as the RAW file comes straight from the sensor this gives photographers more control over how the final JPEG or TIFF image is displayed.
There is no single RAW format. Digital camera manufacturers have each developed their own proprietary (often undocumented) formats, often changing the format from one camera model to the next. Several major manufacturers, including Canon, Sony and Nikon encrypt elements of the file to prevent 3rd party tools from accessing them.
RAW files are made up of 12 or sometimes 14 bits compared to JPEG which is only made up of 8 bits. This provides for better image quality since any calculations used to generate the pixel values (often described as RGB) can be performed on the base data. This does however mean that RAW file sizes are often between two and six times large than standard JPEG images.
Associated programs
Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop Elements Apple Preview Corel Draw Google Picasa
JPG's are often used for web sites and email as they are generally smaller file sizes as they are lossy meaning that some image quality is lost when the JPG is compressed and saved. The resultant 'lossy' file means that quality can never be recovered. The JPG format is often used in digital camera memory cards. The JPG file is a great format as it often manages to compress files to 1/10 of the size of the original file which is especially good for saving on bandwidth.
JPG is a graphical file format for editing still images, it offers a symmetrical compression technique which is processor intensive and time consiming in both compression and decompression. JPEG is a joint standard of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-T T.81) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 10918-1). JPEG involves a lossy compression mechanism using discrete cosine transform (DCT). Compression rates of 100:1 can be achieved, although the loss is noticeable at that level. Compression rates of 10:1 or 20:1 yield little degradation in image quality.
Associated programs
Adobe Photoshop Apple Preview Corel Paint Shop Pro Microsoft Windows Photo Gallery Viewer
