snpsht: When editing in Photoshop, I feel like I’m able to manipulate it the same I would a jpg, no more. (Submitted by iwrite) — When you shoot in RAW Format, you will be able to get a lot more out of the photo you took than having it already narrowed down to the information a JPG can take. With JPG, a final (and compressed) format, you cannot save such a large range of contrast/brightness and colors. The raw file is like a negative that you can still influence when it is being interpreted into a JPG. For example, see these two “prints” of the same raw file. The first one might have been your JPG, the one where you messed up the settings and thought you lost quite some information in the brightness and color (too bright and all greenish) to bad exposure – The second one is what you can still make of it! For example, white balance can be done later and you can pick the area of brightness and contrast which is appropriate for your photo from lots of information stored. It will remember what you told it to do when you save the file your raw converter creates, but it will not overwrite your raw file, ever. Of course, raw files are much larger and not for everyone. You should not give them out of hand and always convert to a format like PSD, JPG etc., so that the photo can be final. Mareen I wish someone would have explained this to me this clearly when I started shooting digital. I only just recently discovered the benefits of RAW about four months ago and I don’t know why in the world I hadn’t used it those first 8 months I had been shooting with my new DSLR! It changed my life. Seriously. When I pull up great shots with incorrect exposures in RAW it’s pretty easy to correct my faults and create an evenly exposed shot. Plus the quality in itself is such an improvement. There are so many photos I shot in JPGs back in the day that I wish I had in a RAW format. Sigh. And donuts!! *drools*