Any advantage to saving pics in RAW format?

[PDT]

Playing around with my camera last week I found that I can save images in RAW format as well as Jpeg, I assume these are used for editing pics yourself and they are saved with no enhancement/compression by the camera.

If I dont plan on editing pics afterwards is there any benefit in saving a raw image? as they take up loads of space on the memory card.

[alexperkins]

RAW captures the image as the sensor sees it, so no post processing whatsoever is done leaving you with a truly original photo that you can post process as you wish with alot more flexibility

They do take much more space, but IMO its worth it, though I do it mainly so I can have control on the colour temp, exposure etc which JPEG wont allow you to do accurately.

[Top Cat]

I would say No for pictures on the net, you have to convert them to Jpeg to post them up anyhow, But for printing pics then i would shoot in raw. everytime you edit a pic in Jpeg you lose a bit of detail, when in raw you dont also you can set the adjust white  balance in raw without loss, but to be honest unless you are a serious photographer then you would not even notice the difference unless, as i say on large print. 

[Hedge]

Mr Cat 

[animal]

Just think of your RAW as a negative, in very simple terms. You can develop it in many different ways, but you always retain to original data as the camera captures it.

RAWs can also be good when you over/under expose etc. as you can usually recover some of the image depending on how badly you get it wrong.