JPEG, TIFF or Raw?

We all know that JPEG, TIFF and Raw are file formats. JPEG stands for ‘Joint Photographic Experts Group’; TIFF stands for ‘Tagged Image File Format’, while Raw is not an acronym (short-form). Raw simply means ‘raw’ or untouched.

- Rohinton Mehta

Our cameras allow us to shoot in JPEG and/or Raw. Some cameras in the past did allow shooting in TIFF but to the best of my knowledge, these days, cameras do not have TIFF as a choice. This was probably because TIFF files are horrendously large (much larger than Raw files) and as such writing to the memory card takes a long time. At the same time, it fills up the memory card very quickly.

So when it comes to recording the data to the memory card, should you use JPEG or Raw?

Note: JPEG files are marked as .jpg whereas Raw files are marked differently depending on the camera manufacturer. Canon Raw files are marked CR2, Fujifilm Raw files as RAF, Nikon Raw files as NEF (Nikon Electronic Format), Olympus uses ORF as a suffix, Panasonic uses RAW/RW2, Pentax uses PEF, while Sony mentions their Raw files as ARW. These are proprietary file formats and for this reason, manufacturers themselves provide the software that can read them. These software packages are known as Raw Converters. Some software developers (like Adobe) reverse-engineer the Raw files and provide their own Raw Convertor (Adobe Camera Raw or ACR).

There is also one more Raw file format called DNG (Digital Negative) which unlike all the other Raw files mentioned, is an open non-proprietary standard. This is being promoted by Adobe but only a few manufacturers follow this.

Let’s consider both sides of the coin.