If understanding RAW is still difficult after what I said before, take a look at the following images from photo.net.

understanding raw

understanding raw
The 3 most known RAW formats are CRW, CR2, NEF, and DNG. A few words on them:

The Canon RAW (CRW, CR2) File Format
Canon uses two different RAW formats, and some camera models produce CR2 instead of CRW files and other models can use bouth. The Canon CRW file format is type of RAW file format and It has a structure that is fundamentally similar to TIFF. CRW files are written in Camera Image File Format (CIFF).
For extremely detailed informations about the structure of a CRW see this article.

The Nikon RAW (NEF) File Format
Nikon RAW Format is known as Nikon Electronic Format (.NEF). Nikon offer their pro SLRs with PictureProject software that includes limited control over the RAW file conversion process, and then offer the more feature-rich Nikon Capture conversion software for an added cost. Nikon’s policy was to encrypt the white balance data in order to sell their software, so with other available programs the management of .nef files is limited. While Nikon Capture does indeed offer excellent capabilities for people to manipulate images saved in NEF formats, many photographers prefer Adobe Photoshop and from now on Adobe Lightroom.

The Adobe RAW (DNG) File Format
Adobe’s Digital NeGative format, indicated as .dng, is an open standard file format available to all, without secrecy, seeking to become the next overall universal format. A quote from OpenRaw: DNG is not an open standard in that it does not document all the essential information contained in current RAW format files like NEF and CR2. In many ways, DNG can be viewed as simply yet another RAW format with undocumented information – except that DNG has the added risk that information can be lost during conversion to/from DNG and other RAW formats.

Tags: raw, raw format, raw files, raw image, raw conversion, digital raw, raw formats, raw file, iphoto, picasa, microsoft digital image, openraw, dng, nef, cr2, crw