Every camera, and most recent phones, will ask you a question before you shoot a single product: RAW or JPEG? Plenty of sellers pick JPEG because the files are small and the photos look finished straight away. Plenty of others pick RAW because a photographer told them to, then drown in 70 MB files they never edit. Neither habit is wrong in itself, but one of them is probably costing you either time or colour accuracy. This guide explains what each format actually does, when RAW pays for itself in e-commerce work, and how to get from either format to a marketplace-ready JPEG without surprises.
What RAW and JPEG actually are
A JPEG is a finished picture. The camera reads the sensor, applies white balance, contrast, sharpening, noise reduction and a colour profile, then compresses the result into an 8-bit file. Every one of those decisions is baked in. You can still edit a JPEG, but you are editing the camera's interpretation, not the original data.
A RAW file (CR3, NEF, ARW, RAF, or the universal DNG) is the unprocessed sensor data plus a set of instructions. White balance, exposure compensation and picture style are stored as metadata, not applied to the pixels. Your editing software applies them when you open the file, and you can change them freely. Nothing is thrown away until you export.
The numbers behind the difference
- Bit depth: a JPEG stores 256 tonal levels per colour channel (8-bit). A typical camera RAW stores 4,096 (12-bit) or 16,384 (14-bit) levels. Smartphone RAW is usually 12-bit for ProRAW and 16-bit linear DNG for Samsung's Expert RAW.
- File size: Apple puts a 12 MP ProRAW at roughly 25 MB and a 48 MP ProRAW at roughly 75 MB, against 2 to 10 MB for the equivalent HEIC or JPEG. Camera RAW files run from about 25 MB on a 24 MP body to 60 MB and more on 45 MP bodies. Expect RAW to be 5 to 12 times larger than JPEG from the same camera.
- Recovery headroom: a slightly underexposed RAW can usually be lifted two or three stops with clean results. Blown highlights in a JPEG are gone for good.
Why bit depth matters more for products than for holiday snaps
Most product photos are shot on plain backgrounds, and plain backgrounds expose 8-bit limitations faster than any other subject. A white sweep that falls off gently into grey is a long, smooth gradient. If you brighten a JPEG to make that sweep pure white, the 256 available steps get stretched and you see banding, the staircase pattern that makes a backdrop look cheap. The same edit on a 14-bit RAW has 64 times as many steps to work with and stays smooth.
Colour correction is the other big one. In a RAW file, white balance is a number you change with no quality cost. In a JPEG, the camera has already multiplied every pixel by its white balance guess, and reversing a wrong guess means pushing channels that have little data left. For sellers, this is the difference between a navy jumper that stays navy and one that drifts purple, and colour mismatch remains one of the most common reasons buyers return fashion and home goods.
When RAW pays for itself
Colour-critical categories
Apparel, cosmetics, paint, home textiles, and anything sold in multiple colour variants. If a customer is choosing between "sage" and "eucalyptus", you need to be able to match a grey card exactly in post. RAW makes that a one-click correction applied across the whole batch.
Mixed or awkward lighting
Window light that shifts over a two-hour shoot, a cheap LED panel with a green tint, a shop floor with fluorescent tubes overhead. JPEGs shot under changing light will not match each other on the listing page. RAW lets you normalise the whole set to a single white balance afterwards.
Highlight-heavy products
White products on white, glossy packaging, chrome and glass. These scenes push the sensor into clipping on at least one channel. RAW usually preserves a stop or two of highlight detail that the JPEG engine has already discarded, which is the detail that separates a white box from a white blob.
Anything you might reuse at print size
If the same shot could end up on a trade-show banner, a packaging insert or an A+ Content module, keep the RAW. A 2,000 px JPEG cannot be enlarged cleanly; a RAW master can be exported at any size you later need.
When JPEG is the smarter choice
RAW is not free. It costs storage, processing time and a software subscription. JPEG wins when:
- You shoot in a controlled studio with fixed strobes or LEDs, a custom white balance set from a grey card, and a tethered or test-shot check at the start. Once the light is locked, the camera's JPEG will be correct shot after shot.
- Volume is the constraint. A dropshipper listing 80 SKUs a day on Shopee and Lazada does not need 80 files of 50 MB each. The buyers are viewing a 1,024 px thumbnail compressed again by the marketplace.
- The product is simple and matte. Cardboard, fabric with no sheen, dark plastics. There is little highlight or colour drama to recover.
- Your phone's computational JPEG is doing the heavy lifting. Modern phone HDR merges several frames; a single-frame RAW from the same phone can actually be noisier in shadows unless you use the manufacturer's computational RAW mode.
The compromise most sellers should use: RAW + JPEG
Nearly every mirrorless and DSLR camera, and both iPhone (ProRAW) and Samsung (Expert RAW) phones, can save both files from a single press of the shutter. The JPEG goes straight into your listing workflow today. The RAW sits in cold storage as insurance. If a customer complains that the colour is off, or Amazon asks for a 3,000 px re-upload, or you rebrand onto a grey background next year, the RAW is there.
Storage is cheaper than a reshoot. At today's prices, a 2 TB external drive holds roughly 40,000 camera RAW files or about 25,000 48 MP ProRAW files. One well-organised drive per year covers most small catalogues.
Exporting for marketplaces: what every platform actually wants
Whatever you shoot, no marketplace accepts a RAW file. They all want a processed JPEG (or PNG) in the sRGB colour space, within a pixel and file-size ceiling. Export in Adobe RGB or ProPhoto and your carefully corrected colours will look dull and shifted in the browser.
| Platform | Preferred format | Colour space | Max file size | Sensible export size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | JPEG (PNG, TIFF, GIF accepted) | sRGB | 10 MB | 2,000 to 3,000 px longest side, under 10,000 px |
| Shopify | JPEG or PNG (WebP supported) | sRGB | 20 MB | 2,048 x 2,048 px, kept under 500 KB |
| Shopee | JPG or PNG | sRGB | 2 MB (5 MB in some categories) | 1,024 x 1,024 px, 300 KB to 1 MB |
| Lazada | JPG or PNG | sRGB | 3 MB | 1,000 to 2,000 px square, under 1 MB |
| eBay | JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, HEIC | sRGB | 12 MB | 1,600 px longest side |
| Etsy | JPEG, PNG, GIF | sRGB | 20 MB | 2,000 px shortest side |
Marketplace limits change, so treat these as a working guide and check the seller centre for your category before a large upload.
A clean RAW-to-listing workflow
- Cull first. Delete misfires before you edit anything. Editing 300 RAW files you will never use is the fastest way to resent the format.
- Correct one, sync to all. Fix white balance and exposure on a frame that includes your grey card, then sync those settings across every shot under the same light.
- Export a high-resolution sRGB master. One JPEG per image at full resolution, quality 90 to 95, 8-bit, sRGB embedded. This is your working master, not your upload.
- Resize and compress per platform. Produce the 1,024 px Shopee square, the 2,000 px Amazon file and the 2,048 px Shopify version from that master, each within its own size limit. A batch tool such as PixelPrep takes the master set and produces every marketplace variant in one pass, so you are not running six separate exports.
- Archive the RAW and the master with a name that matches your SKU. Future you will thank present you.
Smartphone RAW: worth it or not?
Yes for colour-critical work, with two caveats. First, use the manufacturer's computational RAW (Apple ProRAW, Samsung Expert RAW) rather than a third-party app's single-frame DNG, because you keep the multi-frame noise reduction while gaining the editable 12 or 16-bit file. Second, remember that ProRAW at 48 MP is only available on the main camera at 1x; macro, telephoto and night shots drop to 12 MP. For a 1,024 px Shopee thumbnail, 12 MP is still four times more resolution than you need.
If you shoot RAW on a phone, edit in an app that reads the embedded profile. Exporting a Samsung DNG through a generic gallery app discards the HDR processing and produces a flat, lifeless file, which is the opposite of what you wanted.
Common mistakes with either format
- Uploading the RAW's size, not its quality. A 75 MB DNG converted to a 9 MB JPEG and uploaded to Shopee gets auto-compressed into mush. Resize to the display size first, then compress.
- Trusting auto white balance in JPEG mode. Auto WB re-guesses every frame, so a run of ten shots can come out ten slightly different colours. Set a custom WB or switch to RAW.
- Editing a JPEG, saving it, and editing it again. Each save recompresses. Work from a master and export fresh each time.
- Forgetting to convert to sRGB on export. This is the single most common reason a RAW workflow produces duller results than the camera JPEG did.
- Keeping RAW files on the memory card as the only copy. Cards fail. Copy to two places before you format.
The decision in one line
Shoot RAW + JPEG if your camera or phone offers it. Use the JPEG when the light was controlled and the colour is already right; open the RAW when it was not. Export everything as sRGB JPEG, resized to each marketplace's display size and under its file limit, and keep the originals archived by SKU.
Quick checklist
- Camera set to RAW + JPEG, or at minimum JPEG Fine with a custom white balance
- Grey card in the first frame of every lighting setup
- White balance and exposure synced across each batch
- Master exported as full-resolution sRGB JPEG, quality 90 to 95
- Per-platform versions resized and compressed within each limit (2 MB Shopee, 3 MB Lazada, 10 MB Amazon, 20 MB Shopify)
- RAW and master archived in two locations, named by SKU
Get the capture format right and the rest of your image pipeline, from batch resizing to colour consistency across variants, becomes a repeatable process rather than a weekly firefight.