Differences RAW & JPG | John-Beckmann.de

Advantages of .raw (in comparison with jpg)

It contains more colour and brightness information. It can make differences between “dark dark dark dark” and “dark dark dark”. (JPG can distinguish between 256 levels of brightness, RAW between 4,096 – 16,384!)
All the information that sensor collects get into the .raw file. That gives the possibilty to edit the pictures in for example Lightroom much better than .jpg would do it.
Over-/ underexposed pictures can be better fixed, due to the amount of information saved in the brightness
White balance can be better adjusted
Noise reduction in Lightroom is very powerful in case you have a noisy picture (due to high ISO for example)
When you do some colour changes, the original file will not altered
A finer grading of colours and tones is possible (because more information is saved)

Disadvantages of .raw (in comparison with .jpg)

A .raw file needs mostly 20-30MB (by a 20MP picture), a .jpg 8-12MB (by a 20MP picture). So you need a hell of storage space to save them!
To save all your changes you need to export them as .jpg – that may take some time.
You cannot save so fast pictures in .raw than in .jpg, and the camera buffer gets faster full.
A .raw file is not all the time the same. A .raw file from Nikon, Samsung, Canon etc. is different, you need a decoder – or lightroom needs a decoder. Thats why with new cameras you need to update Lightroom.
You need an special editor, Lightroom is not for free (but expensive cameras do come with Lightroom), to view .raw – the standard windows explorer is not able to show .raw.

Not sure which format to shoot? Here I have an example between a JPG & RAW picture and make your own opinion 😉