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RAW is as the name says sort of. It is the same picture you see in the JPEG, but it has no in camera processing done to it. The white balance hasn't been touched and none of your system settings have been applied to it.
It is as the camera really sees it. When a camera converts to JPEG, it loses a lot of quality, even when you're set on the highest settings.
The basic advantage of this is that instead of letting the camera do the processing, you're leaving it alone and letting the camera do what it's really designed to do, just capture a picture.
you then take the file and stick it on your computer, and use the power of software to do what you really want it to do. Even using auto settings in Photoshop or other programs will produce a higher quality JPEG then what the camera puts out. And you have way more control over it. And the best part is, as there was no compression done by the camera, you have more to work with when it goes onto the computer.
so you can do dust removal, change settings based on your particular lens and camera body. correct lens aberrations and vignetting, hightlights and low lights have better control, you can control sharpening better, etc, etc.
originally i hated doing this untill i got a program that that processed all my pictures in bulk with ease, you can do it with photoshop, but it's just more work.
Try something like DxO, it's really quick and easy to learn, and makes post processing more enjoyable instead of a challenge. then once you've made a lot of your adjustments, and still want to fine tune an image, take it to photoshop and work some magic when you're ready.
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