Understanding Digital Raw Capture

Bruce Fraser wrote this Adobe whitepaper on raw digital capture that's been cited a lot on Digg lately:

"By now, you’ve probably heard some talk about digital raw capture, but finding a coherentexplanation of just what a digital raw capture actually is can be a bit more challenging. Part of the challenge is that raw isn’t one single thing. Rather, it’s a general term for a variety of proprietary file formats—such as Canon’s .CRW and .CR2, Minolta’s .MRW, Olympus’ .ORF, and the various flavors of Nikon’s .NEF, for example—that share important common features. To understand the nature of digital raw captures, you first need to know a bit about how those cameras that shoot raw actually capture images."

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