Now, this is somewhat foreign territory for me here, as I'm not a techy. I generally take pictures, and leave the technical things to those who enjoy spending most of their time in front of a computer.
But in a recent weekend drive around Lake Ontario, I was just cruising, taking in scenery and stopping for pictures. At this farm in Ontario, I asked the somewhat puzzled farmer if I could take pictures in his barn.
As is typical, about two dozen cats were busily keeping the mouse population to a minimum. This cat decided to stay where it was, not scattering like the others. Being a white cat (or at least, off-white), facing away from the sun, hit hard with shadows, getting both the shadows and highlights were a problem.
Shooting raw images allows much more leeway in manipulation than jpegs. As fellow YDR photographer Paul Kuehnel and tech extraordinaire explained it-- it's like making a cake. A 16-layer cake has more 'information' than an 8-layer cake. Thanks for the visual. Now I understand. For more detailed information about shooting raw images, click here.
The downside is that it takes longer to download, and on late-night deadline, that's sometimes a concern for us. You won't be able to store as many pictures on your card.
Shooting raw, I was able to bring out the detail in the white cat and still hold shadows.
Another way to look at RAW vs. JPEG is to take the statement: "The End." With a RAW file, all of the letters and punctuation are there. When you shoot JPEG, the JPEG algorithm removes the extra items to make it smaller. So "The End." Becomes:
"Thend.
While you can still read it, the JPEG version leaves stuff out. A RAW file is considered to be the "Digital Film Negative." JPEG can considered to be a "Slide." Remember slides? Now it's PowerPoint Presentations. :)
I have found that it's better to shoot with larger memory cards and to always shoot in RAW (or for photographers like yourself RAW+JPEG.) This way you can have the quick-and-dirty JPEG to send off to your editor and have the RAW file if needed.
I can recover from blown out areas much better and find that detail in my photos is greater when shooting RAW. I'm currently using Adobe's Lightroom which makes editing RAW files a breeze. I also agree that with high contrast photos, RAW is almost always required.