The RAW digital image format saves a digital image literally “raw “ and completely uncompressed. It captures only one, out of three, colour channels for each pixel. Each pixel will be red, green or blue and consists in general of 12 bits.

For calculating the RAW format’s file size in our digital image storage table we have used the following method. We multiplied the digital camera’s sensor resolution, total amount of pixels, by the number of colour channels for each pixel and then multiplied by the bits for each colour channel. For example a file size of an image taken by a 2 megapixel digital camera can be calculated as follows:

2 000 000 pixels x 1 colour channel x 12 bits per colour channel
=24 000 000 bits = 3 000 000 bytes = 2.86 MB which is half the size of the TIFF image format.

The weakness of the RAW format is that it has to be converted first to TIFF, JPEG or to any other image format before it can be displayed as a picture. This conversion can either be done by your digital camera or by your computer. The conversion process is also the RAW format’s strength since it gives you the opportunity to use your personal computer for processing the RAW file before converting it to the TIFF or JPEG. The computer’s powerful algorithms give you the possibility to create richer and sharper pictures. Another advantage is that you are able to see the adjustments before converting the file to TIFF or JPEG image formats.

Some digital cameras are offering the option of saving a digital image in both RAW and JPEG mode at the same time. This gives you the opportunity of having a digital image in JPEG format ready to display and a digital image in RAW format for processing later on. The RAW format is something between TIFF and JPEG formats, it offers a high quality image to a relatively small file size.

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