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RAW photo files

I learned just about everything I know about Lightroom/Photoshop workflows from this guy's many, many tutorials. Serge Ramelli Photography

Serge does have some great content for sure. I would also suggest KelbyOne even the free content. I pay for the membership and there is a lot of member only content, but most of it comes out for free eventually.

RAW is where photographers stand out. JPG is a great format, but as others have mentioned, you are letting the camera(drone) make the decisions. If you choose the right JPG profile, and have the white balance set correctly, it will be a great photo. But since you are in the sky and time is limited, RAW allows you to take the shot quickly and then post process the image once on the ground. With Lightroom and Photoshop, you can even apply the JPG profile to the image as though it were picked that way. But it also allows you to make changes after the fact.
 
due to the massive increase in pixel number in RAW
There are many advantages to RAW but "increase in pixel number" isn't one of them.

The main one is dynamic range. Making an 8-bit JPG requires throwing out a lot of tonal data in a way that the camera needs to decide on quickly and that you're never getting back. All of it is available in RAW to take your time and do what you can do best with.

I switched to shooting RAW only the day I saw something happening that left me no time but to aim and shoot as is but the camera was set for something completely different I was doing at that time, with the JPEG ending up completely white becasue of that. But the RAW could be brought back down with no issue thanks to the highlight headroom.

As others mentioned JPEG is fine if you get everything right from the start, RAW lets you fix a lot of messups and do things the camera's processor would never know you want. Backlit scenes and pseudo-HDR processing is a great example.
 
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RAW is where photographers stand out. JPG is a great format, but as others have mentioned, you are letting the camera(drone) make the decisions. If you choose the right JPG profile, and have the white balance set correctly, it will be a great photo. But since you are in the sky and time is limited, RAW allows you to take the shot quickly and then post process the image once on the ground. With Lightroom and Photoshop, you can even apply the JPG profile to the image as though it were picked that way. But it also allows you to make changes after the fact.
There are many misconceptions about jpg files showing up in this thread and this is another one.
You make it sound like you can't post process jpg images but that's another myth just like more pixels or more colours.
 
There are many misconceptions about jpg files showing up in this thread and this is another one.
You make it sound like you can't post process jpg images but that's another myth just like more pixels or more colours.
You absolutely can edit JPG's, however the amount of data to work with is substantially less.
 
You absolutely can edit JPG's, however the amount of data to work with is substantially less.
But not enough to make much difference for most photographers most of the time.
See the images in the link in post #35 for examples of what can be achieved shooting jpg.
 
But not enough to make much difference for most photographers most of the time.
See the images in the link in post #35 for examples of what can be achieved shooting jpg.
As a photographer, I would never consider a JPG for any paid job. I would shoot in RAW and edit the photo to my style and liking. I know many pro sports photos shoot in JPG as they typically are in non changing lighting and need to produce the images quickly for their clients. My clients are not in a hurry for their images, so I want to start with as much flexibility as I can get.
 
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