To me RAWs and JPEG can be the same. The only differences is RAWs are lossless (might not be a very visible difference in practice, the JPEG compression is really great and until recently Sony Raws where lossly compressed) and more importantly that RAWs have more dynamic range.
But for all intent and purpose you can deal with them the same way: as an original you do not change/touch, that ideal could look right out of the box and that is a starting point of your post processing.
Myself I shoot only RAW because basically I brought software that allow the same workflow on RAW and JPEG and that RAWs simply give more latitude.
But that's not the subject. My point is more that when doing you are playing with your Jpeg setting you should keep in mind that if you have only this JPEG and the setting are a bit too specific or extreme, you may not be able to go back to initial state or to the opposite direction if the shoot need it.
If you have a setting for landscapes for example with significantly added sharpness contrast and saturation this will look quite bad on a portrait shoot and playing in post isn't going to fix it. This is basically too late.
So either you have to be sure you'll always have the right settings on or you'll want maybe tuned settings to ease your post processing but to have them not too extreme.
As a side note, counting you agree to invest some money on it and to train a bit, you can make/use presets in your post processing software for different situations, independantly from your choice on Raws/JPEGs. Theses presets will be many time more powerfull than what available in camera and you'll always be able to change you mind later on. You can sometime also download or create presets from advises or good pro photographers to get quite interresting results.
To me that open your photography to new horizons. It is a bit like instagram but on steroid and much more powerful.
Soft gentle rendering with a bit of red and film like noise:
A quite contrasty but also "bleashed" rendering for "oceanic shots" to make them more dramatic:
A somewhat standard landscape rendering with added contrast, saturation and bit darkened blacks but with in addition some vigneting (darkened and softened). Good for added "intimacy" or focussing on the subject. It is quite "cooked" rendering.
Low global contrast but colorful tones. Would say it is bit like "watercolors".
Washed out colors to accentuate the notion of distant fog and atmosphere:
Quite contrasty, darkened and desaturated colors on top of a picture taken with polalriser filter:
Last edited by Nicolas06; 11-28-2015 at 04:10 AM.