How raw works

When you shoot Raw files with your Canon, you’re intercepting your image data at a vital stage

y ou’re not really asking your Canon to do anything different when you shoot a Raw file because creating Raw data is part of its processing anyway. All you’re doing is asking it to save this Raw data as a file you can process yourself, rather than leaving the camera to process it internally.

In effect, the camera is just like any Raw processing software you might use. The difference is that the camera’s processing options are locked in by the camera settings you choose, whereas if you save a Raw file you can choose these settings yourself later.

This is critical, because the processing used to create an in-camera JPEG means removing lots of the data initially shot. With a Raw file you still have all that original image data to work with.