Sometimes I shoot just JPG output.  Other times I shoot RAW and JPG together.  Ninety percent of the time I do nothing with the RAW files.  Other times, I use the extra image data to make something cool.  Here’s an example.

I was asked to shoot a pinup image for my friends Cthulhu Tiki Mug Kickstarter Campaign. (40 hours to go!)  I had a very short amount of time, a willing model and a one-of-a-kind mug that needed to stay undamaged so it could go to China to become many mugs.  We ran over to the park near my house around sunset for a quick shoot.

Take a good look.  This is the exact same photo.  The exposure was 1/15th of a second at F4.5 with ISO 100. On the left is what the camera sent as the processed JPEG.  On the right is what the camera captured in RAW format.

I probably can’t pull this much out of every raw file, but it is an excellent example of why you should a least check them after a shoot.