“Unlike JPEG and TIFF, RAW is not an abbreviation but literally means ‘raw’ as in ‘unprocessed’.” This first sentence from the definition for “RAW” in the dpreview.com glossary explains why, if we follow very basic formatting guidelines, we should write about “raw files” and not “RAW files.” Because the word is actually a word — a common noun — and not an abbreviation, it makes no sense to set it in all caps. A raw file is a raw file is a raw file. A RAW file is not a raw file nor is it a RAW file.
Clearly the editors at dpreview.com have a different idea, and it seems that so do the majority of people writing and publishing about raw files. And given the fact that the conventions of editorial styles change more fluidly than the rules of grammar, there’s no problem with this. If The People write “raw,” then it’s “raw.” If The People write “RAW,” then it’s “RAW.” A raw file can be a RAW file if you want it to be, but if you don’t write about COMPUTER files and NEGATIVE film, you might want to tone things done and just refer to raw files as raw files, which are comprised of raw data and not RAW data, even for editors who chose to write about RAW files rather than raw files.
Just as “admin” was peeved by the use of “HD DSLR” instead of “HDSLR,” I used to be lightly, pettly peeved about the use of “RAW” instead of “raw.” This pet peeve was born when I interviewed Adobe’s Tom Hogarty in December 2006 (or December of 2006, depending on your style) for my very first AfterCapture article. Hogarty had read something of mine in which I had written RAW instead of raw, and gently explained why raw file made more sense than a RAW file.
This was before RAW files had become firmly entrenched, and Hogarty was trying to keep raw files raw. Given the fact that we were talking about Continue reading “It’s “raw” not “RAW” — But I’m Not Raw About It”
