It is a format. Its the unprocessed file straight as the camera takes it. When you shoot in JPEG for example the camera processes the image (this process means some data is lost).
With RAW all the data is kept, then when you open the image in your RAW converter on your PC you have unlimited adjustability. ie white balence etc _________________ http://flickr.com/photos/hugomtb/
As drmrssnap says RAW is a format. Basically it can be thought of as the measures of the light hitting each pixel on the sensor and recorded into a file that programs, such as RAW converters can read. JPEG, can be thought of as the compressed file with the camera settings applied (i.e. tone/saturation/sharpening, etc) to the image recorded by the sensor.
All RAW files need converted to another file type to be printed/viewed on anything other than a RAW converter. The camera used and type of software used to convert has a big say on what the final image looks like. e.g. I use a Nikon camera - Adobe camera RAW only reads WB settings and then applies it's own interpretation of the image, whereas Nikon Capture software loads the RAW file and then reads and applies the in camera settings so that the image looks like the in camera JPEG, but because they won't actually be applied until you save it as JPEG or TIFF.
This makes it very useful to work with as you can adjust them and it doesn't change the data until you save it as another format. All changes are saved in sidecar files. Each time you process and save JPEGs you compress the file, so that it'll really affect the image if you fettle and resave. With RAW files you can fettle with settings - stuff like exposure, WB, tone/contrast, saturation, sharpening, etc in the converter, saving and adjusting over and over again and you won't affect data until you save it (you won't have any compression if you save as TIFF).
I hope you followed that.
The downsides of RAW are that the files are uncompressed and larger than JPEGs - e.g. 10MB for an uncompressed D200 file - and will fill your memory card much quicker. In addition they need to be converted using your PC. This can take quite a bit of time if you've shot lots of pictures and need to process them quickly (e.g. freelance photographer) and in some cases it may be more suitable to shoot JPEG. RAW converters are very RAM intensive programs and even using automated batch processeing can take a while if you've not got a fast computer.
If you want the long version then do a google search. There are lots of pages on this topic. _________________ Hamish
I wasn't referring to the file type (although it is in the end the same kind of thing), just that any raw file from a camera is the modern equivalent of an exposed and processed negative. You can make multiple different conversions from a raw file, just as you can make multiple prints when printing from a negative in the dark room, in both circumstances, the original file/negative remains unchanged.
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