Originally posted by luker I just haven't found the photo where raw helped-maybe because I spent so much time adjusting film scans previously.
I admit this is an extreme example. The original shot was taken in RAW, but I can use the Pentax Digital Camera Utility to create a JPEG using the exact JPEG settings that were on my camera at the time.
It's an extreme example because I was using a Hoya 72 infrared filter. But I did use the camera to set the white balance to the best possible setting I could shoot with, to get a more useful color histogram.
I've taken enough of these shots to know that just a few adjustments in Adobe Camera RAW* can give me what I want, which is this:
Now, I can start with the full JPEG and get close to that, but the processing takes me twice as long and there isn't enough data. The details start to break down. In this case, I can't just take the JPEG straight from camera to print, or get the same quality result after processing a JPEG, or save time. I might have saved card space, but in 7.5 years of DSLR use, I have never used more than half of the card space I had with me.
A separate point: RAW requires some software commitment, usually understated in these threads. But those skills are always useful even for JPEGgers.
*I probably used a trial of Lightroom 4 for this, but since I didn't know what I was doing, I used it exactly like I would use ACR.