Those new to DSLRs often have difficulty getting to grips with the concept of RAW images. However, once you have experienced the benefits of RAW, you are unlikely to ever again shoot JPEG.

With a JPEG, the camera effectively processes the photograph, which you then transfer to the PC. You can manipulate the photo after the event, but you are always adjusting an existing image.

A RAW file is quite different. What you are transferring to the PC is not a photograph, but instead the raw data captured by the camera. This is best understood with the aid of a couple of examples.

Let's imagine that we got the white balance wrong. We left the camera on Tungsten and then shot a photo in daylight. Our photo now has a strong blue cast.

With a JPEG, we can attempt to compensate for this cast, and we may be more or less successful. One thing is for sure: it will be a lot of effort.

With a RAW file, we can actually change the white balance retrospectively. The computer literally makes the same adjustments to the image that the camera would have done at the time the photo was taken. Let me restate that: there is no difference at all between getting the white balance right at the time you took the photo, and correcting the RAW file on the PC afterwards!

The same is true for exposure, colour saturation and a range of other settings. It is as if you had bracketed for a range of settings. That's the power of RAW.

There is also a small quality difference. I was always a little sceptical about this, but this test convinced me.

The drawback of RAW is the slight time overhead it adds: it takes a few seconds to open a RAW image, and you can't do anything with it until you have converted it to a standard format like TIFF or JPEG.

If I'm taking a lot of shots, then I may prefer to work with JPEGs. However, I still shoot RAW - I simply do a batch-conversion to JPEG before I start, retaining the RAW files in case I want to refine a few special shots. This is what I do when shooting for www.whatalovelybaby.com where I shoot over 100 photos.

When batch-converting to JPEG, I use one of two methods. If white balance and exposure are both spot-on (see below for D70-specific comments), then I use Irfanview to do the conversion. To get NEF support, you will also need to download this file. Extract the file called formats.dll and drop it into the Plug-ins folder inside the Irfanview folder.

D70 comments: If you want images you can use straight out of the camera, I recommend the following settings:
- EV +0.3 if it is sunny, and +0.7 if it is cloudy
- WB Auto -2 (Camera menu » WB » Auto » Adjust » -2 » OK)
(For snapshots, you may also want to boost saturation, but I leave this alone)

If I need to adjust white balance or exposure, then I do the batch-conversion in Photoshop instead. Batch-application of RAW settings makes this a simple task for the baby shots: as they are all shot at the same time in the same environment, the chances are that any tweaking necessary is the same for every shot. I thus do this as follows:

1. Select File » Browser to display thumbnails of all the NEFs
2. Double-click the first photo to open the RAW dialogue in the usual way
3. Make the desired tweaks to the first NEF, click OK then close
4. Do a select-all (CTRL-A) to select all the NEFs
5. Right-click on any of them while they are selected
6. Select Apply RAW settings and click the Advanced radio button
7. From the drop-down, select First image
8. If desired, you can unselect any settings you do not wish to be used
9. Click OK

Photoshop will now make the same changes to all the RAW files you selected.

Once that's done, then you need to batch-convert to JPEG, and here you must use Photoshop so that it picks up the changes you just made. This puzzled me for a long time as I couldn't see how to skip the RAW dialogue to enable an action to run without user input. The secret, I discovered, is to do it from the File Browser, as above.

So, start with an open NEF, and start recording. First, convert to 8-bit: Mode » 8-bit. Then select File » Save, select JPEG and hit ok. Select Quality 12 then click ok. Then click the close box. Stop recording. That's the action you will use.

With the File Browser open as above, select Automate » Batch and then choose the action you created above. This will now work, skipping the RAW dialogue.

You now have the best of both worlds! The speed and ease of working with JPEGs, plus the RAW files available where post-processing is required. With this procedure, there really is no reason to ever shoot JPEG except perhaps for sports where you are shooting machine-gun style and RAW would slow you down.