Raw? JPEG?

[rodw]

I made this file for people still wondering why shooting raw is better. I've just applied different levels of jpeg compression to the three panels.

This does not prove anything except that the file you created is way outside of what JPEG is designed to be used for. It is a known fact in the printing industry that files with large areas of the same colour, like screen dumps should never be Handled as JPEG. Files like this should be handled as TIFF with LZW lossless compression. JPEG was designed To deal with compression of more random patterns of colour as you expect to find in photographs.

I'm not going to buy into the RAW v's JPEG discussion as I am still grappling with that myself. Part of me says that as we move forward in technology, that the need for RAW diminishes as the algorithims for processing become more sophisticated and the technology can generally do better than I can but I keep,a foot in both camps.