I have switched to shooting entirely in camera raw. What is the advantage? You get all the digital information the sensor collects. Then when you process the photo you can adjust the settings like color cast, white balance, brightness and sharpness. You can't change the focus, so you still need to get that right. But you will get better range in the extremes of light areas and dark shadows.

What is the disadvantage? The files are larger so you can really fill up your hard drive. You have to post process every photo. You have to have a camera that will shoot in raw. If you shoot sports or fast action subjects, your burst photo number will be less due to the size of the files.

Most cameras that can shoot RAW also come with software to take advantage of the files. You don't have to run out and buy photoshop.

Try it you'll love it.

Oh my god thank you very much this is freaking awsome and it worked


thank you so much

Hey Emerger,
I use a Lumix Fz-18. Since I bought it in Japan, i didn't notice this at first, but all the software that came along with this were in Japanese. Now, I don't even know a literal of japanese. The software for this RAW thingy is also japanese. I cant even read the name.. can u tell me what should i do to process the RAW images. Is there a freeware to read these. I tried irfanView but it cannot.

As far as I know, the RAW for different camera manufacturers is different. Its like specific to that camera only.

I am shooting in JPEGs only