What is the difference between RAW images and another uncompressed format like BMP?
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Well, think about it this way. Let’s say you have a book. The story has not yet been written down, it exists only in your mind. It’s hard for me to peer into your mind and turn that into words, even with something like a mri. You have to first translate those thoughts into text, and then turn that text into sentences and finally put all those sentences together in a story. There’s some editing that will take place, just so that you can actually make it a coherent story.
That’s what happens when you convert a raw file to an image. That raw file contains lots of data that is simply unusable by image formats. For example, the sensor may pick up colors that are not actually present in any color gamut. In the future you could possibly convert that same raw file into a compatible format for some future technology that has better color. However, even an uncompressed format like bitmap is going to have much of the original data removed in order to fit the image fomat.
Bitmap itself is uncompressed, but it is not necessarily lossless compared to a raw file. It throws away all the pieces that don’t fit the bitmap format just as a writer throws away all the pieces of the draft that don’t fit a finished story. However, if they keep that original draft they might take those pieces in the future and make another better story.
Tldr RAW just has more data than can fit into a standard image format because of color space limitations. Many formats are uncompressed, but not lossless compared to raw.
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