>>3358110>>You gain about two stops of real, usable dynamic range over jpeg. >[citation needed]JPEG can store 8 bits per color channel. Raw files tend to store 12 or 14 bits per color channel. It's not quite as simple as saying it has more usable dynamic range since the JPEG processing curves the data rather than just lopping off the ends that don't fit, but you generally will end up with extra detail in the highlights and in the shadows that will be clipped in the default JPEG output owing to the much finer grained control doing your own output curve gives you.
>>White balance and color is far more accurate.>Has nothing to do with raw or jpeg, rather the sensor and the color space.This one really shows that you don't know what you're talking about.
One of the biggest advantages of raw formats is that they don't lock in the color data. You get the full color data from each photosite. From that, you can set your white balance in postprocessing without losing any data whatsoever. When you shoot JPEG, the white balance is locked into whatever your camera was set to--if it's too red, your pixels are just not going to have the green/blue data that was there, for instance. You can pull it back a little bit, but you can't get data that's just not there anymore.
For me, this alone is worth shooting raw. It means that you don't ever have to fiddle around with white balance settings on your camera when you might be missing shots. If you're shooting somewhere where you have to move back and forth between different color temperatures (e.g., indoor event shooting during the day, when there's daylight coming in through windows and incandescents or fluorescents lighting most of the building), it's a lifesaver.
