Need Quick Advice on Raw or Jpeg

[Rick Waldroup]

I am fairly new to digital and I normally shoot in Jpeg for my own stuff. A friend of mine needs a quick headshot- has to be done this afternoon. I am going to break out the studio lights and shoot it. I have never shot in raw. Can she get a decent 8x10 or 11x14 print fron jpeg fine? I can control the light so the exposure will not be a problem- but would it be better to shoot it in raw and convert it to a tiff file. She just wants me to burn it to a CD so she can have prints made later. The only software I have is Nikon Capture and PS Elements 2. The camera is a D1x which is 5.1 MP. Thanks to anyone who can help.

[CaptainTom]

I guess there was no one around when you posted this. Hope I'm not too late.

YOu can shoot in any format you are comfortable with. As we have all heard, RAW will give you the most forgiveness as far as exposure and white balance goes. JPEG can be easy to manipulate if you have the basic software, and know how to apply it. I would recommend that for a quickie job like this you don't put all your eggs in one basket. Shoot jpeg plus RAW if your camera allows. Or, shoot some in jpeg and some in RAW. The format you save the files in is not nearly as important if you get the correct exposure, focus, color balance, etc.