RAW vs JPEG

RAW is the camera's unprocessed sensor data, offering maximum editing latitude in large files; JPEG is a compressed, processed image that's smaller and ready to use but less flexible to edit.

A RAW file (Canon CR3, Nikon NEF, Sony ARW, Fujifilm RAF) records everything the sensor captured, so you can recover highlights and shadows and adjust white balance freely — at the cost of large files that need processing. A JPEG is baked and compressed in-camera: smaller and instantly usable, but with less room to push in editing.

Many cameras shoot RAW+JPEG, writing both. When delivering camera-to-cloud, you can choose to upload the RAW, the JPEG, or both — JPEGs for instant client previews and RAWs for the edit.