S60's RAW format

[jhansman]

Mods: Please move this thread to another, more appropriate forum if necessary.

I'm thinking of replacing my so-so Olympus with the Canon S60, partially because the Canon can use the RAW format. I'm wondering if RAW is that much better than TIFF, and if so, does the ability to manipulate RAW images in, say, PS Elements 3 give you more flexiblilty than with the same image image as TIFF? Living with the inherent limitations of JPEG is beginning to chafe my creative self. ;)

[adas]

Welcome to the forum, jhansman.
You bet RAW is better than TIFF.
The first reason is storage space. TIFF is uncompressed so for a 5 Mpix image you need 30MB memory space on your card. RAW (thanks to Canon's lossless compression algorithm) requires only around 5 MB.
The second reason is that TIFF is already half processed image, bayer interpolation is applied with relatively poor quality in-camera algorithms, because there's no time and no processing power.
With RAW data taken directly from the sensor, one can choose from a dozen of different interpolation algorithms, one more complex than another.

[jhansman]

I guess my next question is, if I am stuck with my Olympus for now, is TIFF the best I can do with it? I've seen what it can do with JPEG, and that's fine for birthday party snapshots. But, if I am looking for landscapes worth printing at 8x 10, is TIFF as good as I'm going to get? Thanks.

[adas]

Yes, Tiff would be more suitable for heavy processing than Jpg, assuming it is in 16bit/pixel format. Otherwise you should forget about it.