RAW in ACR vs JPG in ACR?

Question

Photoshop has now given the facility to open and edit JPEGs and other non-RAW file formats using Adobe Camera Raw. One doesn't have to shoot RAWs to do some heavy edits. So is there still any benefit that shooting in RAW makes when editing it in ACR? When a RAW file is opened in ACR why do some menu items (sliders, etc.) *color up* and they don't do so when a JPEG is opened in ACR?

Answer 1

Shooting in RAW still gives you more information available to work with, and is the reason some sliders aren't going to appear when editing a JPEG. With a RAW photo, all the data collected when light hits the camera's sensor is stored and can be manipulated. This allows you to change the white balance and finely tune other aspects in post.

With JPEG, what you see is what you have to work with, and any adjustments are that are going to be applied are reliant on the information that is stored in the file. With less information in a JPEG, there is a limited amount that can actually be done. The JPEG doesn't retain all the extra information, and you can't adjust information that isn't there.

While using ACR can give you more flexibility in adjusting a JPEG, it's still not going to have the same functionality you can get when using RAW. If you get the perfect shot in-camera, you could get by without using RAW images, but to do any serious edits with color temp, white balance, or levels, you still need the RAW image to work with or the colors will become distorted.