A camera
raw image file contains minimally processed data from the
image sensor of either a
digital camera,
image scanner, or
motion picture film scanner. Raw files are named so because they are not yet processed and therefore are not ready to be
printed or edited with a
bitmap graphics editor. Normally, the image is processed by a raw converter in a wide-
gamut internal
colorspace where precise adjustments can be made before conversion to a "positive" file format such as
TIFF or
JPEG for storage, printing, or further manipulation, which often encodes the image in a device-dependent colorspace. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of raw formats in use by different models of digital equipment (like cameras or film scanners).