Format - RAW vs JPEG vs TIFF?

I am new to Aperture and I received a Nikon D3000 for Christmas. I am NOT a professional photographer. I just take pictures of my family and places we go. I would appreciate suggestions as to what format might be best for me. Thanks.

JPEG is the simplest, smallest, probably offers best quality for someone who doesn't want to post-process the image themselves, but offers the least amount of control. When shooting in JPEG format, you can think of the computer inside the camera as being your own little photo-processing department. The camera will not only "capture" the image, it'll post process it by adjusting light levels, white balance, noise levels, sharpening, etc. It's all fully automatic.
HOWEVER... it will ALSO compress the image substantially so that it doesn't take much space. When it does this, it'll decide to reduce the quality of the image in areas where the human eye probably wont notice. This is lost data that you can never really recover. The "problem" here is that if something is over-saturated, too bright, or too dark, etc. a JPEG will just "compress" all the pixels that seem to be "alike" by making them effectively identical. When you later try to adjust the image by editing saturation, highlights, or shadows, you'll discover that the JPEG has clipped off all the detail and the area of the image is flat. This would not happen if you had shot in RAW.
RAW offers you the most control over your image. A RAW image is sort of like the "negative" in a film camera before it's been printed by the photo lab. The camera retains the original data as seen by the sensor at the time the image was captured and does not 2nd guess what the image was supposed to look like. It will make some adjustments, but it will not make any adjustments that are considered "destructive" to the original data. The files will not be compressed -- so the storage of each image will consume much more space on your memory card. Areas of an image that are too bright, too dark, saturated, or blown out and "appear" to be flat, may not actually be flat. You may actually be able to recover data by adjusting the photo -- this is because if too two pixels on the sensor appear to be nearly identical but are not actually identical, RAW will not compress them to be the same color (as JPEG would). It'll store the difference no matter how subtle. When you adjust the image, you may see the detail return.
HOWEVER... some things you may take for granted with a point-and-shoot will NOT be performed on a RAW image. For example, the camera will not attempt to de-noise the image. If you shoot in both RAW and JPEG then compare the results (without doing anything to either image) you should notice that the JPEG actually looks better. But that's because the JPEG was already processed and the RAW was not. After processing the RAW image, you may find that the RAW looks better. RAW is particularly better when you know you'll need to adjusting the images.
TIFF is non-lossy (like RAW) but unlike RAW, TIFF is a fixed standard. E.g. if you need to give someone a non-compressed non-lossy file so they can do more processing with it then you send them TIFF. If you send them RAW you're taking a chance that they wont have any software that can open the file. The "problem" with RAW is that it's more of a concept than a standard. Every model camera seems to have it's own variation on 'RAW' and that's why there's a delay in support from Apple & Adobe to add 'RAW' support for any new model that comes out.

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Thanks everyone for this continued discussion in my absence over two weeks. Going through it i realize its helpful stuff. During this period, i downloaded Aperture trial and have learnt it (there's actually not much learning, its so incredibly intuitive and simple, but incredibly powerful. Since I used iphoto in the past, it just makes it easier.
I have also started editing my pics to put them up on my photo site. And over past 10 days, here is the workflow I have developed.
-Download RAW files onto my laptop using Canon s/w into a folder where i categorize and maintain all my images
-Import them into Aperture, but letting the photos reside in the folder structure i defined (rather than have Aperture use its own structure)
-Complete editing of all required images in Aperture (and this takes care of 80-90% of my pics)
     -From within Aperture open in PS CS5 those images that require editing that cannot be done in Aperture
     -Edit in CS5 and do 'Save', this brings them back to Aperture
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-Select the images that I need to put up on my site and export them to a new folder from where i upload them
I would be keen to know if someone else follows a more efficient or robust workflow than this, would be happy to incorporate it.
There are still a couple questions I have:
1 - Related to PS CS5: Why do files opened in CS5 jump up in terms of their file size. Any RAW or JPEG file originally btn 2-10 MB shows up as minimum 27 MB in CS. The moment you do some edits and/or add layers, it reaches 50-150MB. This is ridiculous. I am sure I am doing something wrong. Or is this how CS5 works with everyone.
2 - After editing a file in CS by launching it from Aperture, I now end up with two versions in Aperture, the original file and the new .PSD file (which is usually 100MB+). I tried exporting the .PSD file to a folder to upload it on my site, and wasnt sure what format and size it would end up with. I got it as a JPEG file within reasonable filesize limits. Is this how Aperture works? Does Aperture allow you options of which format you want to save the file in?

When importing Raw into A3, in what format is the picture displayed? Jpeg or tiff.

When importing Raw into A3, in what format is the picture displayed on the screen? Jpeg or Tiff ?

None of the comments you have gotten are particularly useful. The display is independent of format of the file. It's rendering is of the full pixels in the image file that you have imported, modified by any adjustments you have made, or not if you ask to see the Master.
Even if your Master was imported as a JPEG, as seen on the screen it would have been decompressed, and you would see all the pixels (that the screen is capable of). However, a JPEG may have lost some detail in the compression, but when decompressed has the same number of pixels as the equivalent uncompressed photo format -- but some of them may result from interpolation, and not be the original.
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Simply select and edit each picture thumbnail from the left panel without clicking 'Done' or 'Open'.
When you have edited each individual picture, select all your thumbnails - click on the first one - shift click on the last one. They should be all highlighted.
Then simply click 'Done'.
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If the thumbnails are not yet automatically updated, select the files, right click and choose 'Update thumbnail'.
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Edit:
I am not sure I have understood your question.
The above process lets you convert and edit a batch of raw files without opening the editor.
If you want to get jpeg or tiff files from the already edited raw files, either use the 'process multiple files' of the editor or the 'export' feature from the Organizer.
The common raw workflow in Elements consists in converting small batches as explained above to take advantage of applying common edits or individual differences. In some cases you want to open the editor, in others not.
That's at the input time.
When you want to output pictures, the selection of picture is different for each purpose. You'll include pictures edited in different batches, some still in raw format, others already converted in version sets to jpeg/tiff... For each output purpose, those selected pictures can be sent to the destination folder in the required format withoug opening the editor at that stage either using 'process multiple files' or 'export'.

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I'm using Panasonic LX3 with its RAW format (a supported RAW format since sometimes with iPhoto '09 already)
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You don;t have a preset set. What you are seeing is normal behavior when importing Raw files.
What you see at first is the camera produced JPG preview imbedded in the Raw file. Aperture puts this up while it decodes the actual Raw data. This JPG has all the special settings and enhancements set on the camera and is basically the image that would be produced if you were shooting JPG.
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regards

RAW vs JPEG Tiff vs PSD

Someone mentioned that with a RAW format file from my Nikon camera, I can manipulate the image more extensively than if I have the camera save the JPG file.
Eventually I save it as a TIFF or PSD.
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JPEG format
+ smaller file size
+ great portfolio of software to manage this format
-- just 8-bit (8 stops) dynamic range
-- lossy compression format
RAW format
-- larger file size
-- just a few programs to manage this format
+ usually 12-bit (12 stops) and larger dynamic range
+ lossless compression format
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Requesting immediate help if anyone available currently
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Format - RAW vs JPEG vs TIFF?

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