Taking pictures in RAW

[spoot]

You keep more data too. If you are shooting only in JPG, the camera compresses the sensor data, and applies the tonal curve that is preset. If you are using RAW, you are basically saving the sensor data. Main advantage is that the dynamic range of your sensor is more than the eye can see, so by shooting in raw, you can bring out highlights or shadows that get removed when compressing to JPG. This allows greater exposure control in post processing.