OK, last word on JPG vs. RAW, I promise!  Really, just a summary:

JPG

Pros:

• Smaller file size;
• Don’t need to process much to share with friends, family;
• Tends to do a pretty good job of processing;

Cons:

• Still needs some post-processing, especially if you resize images;
• Loses some detail in the image;

RAW

Pros:

• Captures far more detail;
• Gives you a chance to recover images that would be unfixable in JPG;
• Wider range of post-processing options;

Cons:

• They’re large – huge, even – requiring a lot of space for storing;
• They’re slow to process, due to the large size;
• Post-processing is required, which takes time

My Approach

So how do I do it? It depends on the camera, in fact.  On my SLR, I only take RAW photos.  I’m going for quality with that guy.  My sd500? I take both RAW and JPG files.  I have no choice, in fact – when I enable RAW format on that guy, he won’t stop taking JPGs.  Oh, and that’s not a typo if you recall the specs from a couple days ago – even though Canon claims it only outputs JPGs, there’s a way around that.  I’ll get into that another day.

Any other camera?  Depends.  If it’s really high resolution & I’m in a flat lighting environment, I’ll probably stick to JPG. Once things even start feeling extreme, I shift to RAW.