Whether we are shooting JPEG or RAW, we can still adjust the white balance of the photo in post-editing. However, the difference is that with RAW the Kelvin (K) value (unit for color temperature) of the shooting scene is recorded, while JPEG only records a relative color temperature value. Therefore, when we need to align all photos to the same color temperature, with RAW it’s easy as we can simply adjust the K value of each photo. Since the original K value is not recorded in JPEG, we can only check with the eyes or use other methods to adjust the color temperature to the same level.

RAW records more image data and so the file size is large. If you are using a high-resolution camera, a RAW image may take up 50-60MB. Although we can always use a memory card with higher capacity, the speed of continuous shooting will be affected as saving a RAW image with larger file size would be much slower than saving a JPEG image. This leads to reduced number of shots during continuous shooting.

All the advantages of RAW mentioned above is post-editing related. So if you don’t post-edit, you may not need to shoot RAW.

Assuming that you have decided to shoot RAW, as a RAW file cannot be shown directly in ordinary software or browser, you must first convert it into JPEG or PNG formats. As most social networking sites don’t support sharing of files which are too large in size, the photo to upload will be automatically compressed, causing loss of details in the uploading process. That’s why many people may find the photo looks different in quality after uploading to social networking sites. In order to display the photo in its optimal quality, you need to know the photo requirements of the social networking site you use.

For example, Facebook will compress a photo which is larger than 2048px, and changing the Color Profile to sRGB will work best. Therefore, for Facebook users, always resize photos to 2048px and save in sRGB to ensure optimal quality.

The above are a brief introduction of RAW format and the best setting to upload photos. Please take these as reference and find the format and way to upload that work best for you!