Nikon D300 User Manual page 124

When you take a picture in RAW format, the camera records
the image data from the sensor and stores markers for how the
camera's color, sharpening, contrast, saturation, etc. are set.
But it does not apply the camera setting information to the
image. In your computer's post-processing software, the
image will appear on-screen using the settings you initially
configured in your D300(S). However, these settings are only
applied in a temporary manner for your computer viewing
pleasure.
If you don't like the white balance you selected at the time
you took the picture, simply apply a new white balance and
the image will appear just as if you had used the new white
balance setting when you first took the picture. If you had low
sharpening set in-camera and change it to higher sharpening
in-computer, the image will look just like it would have
looked had you used higher in-camera sharpening when you
took the image. You can change sharpening levels in the
Picture Control you have selected.
This is quite powerful! Virtually no camera settings are
applied to a RAW file in a permanent way. That means you
can apply completely different settings to the image
in-computer and it will appear just as if you had used the new
settings when you first took the picture. This allows a lot of
flexibility later. If you shot the image initially using the
Standard Picture Control and now want to use the Vivid
Picture Control, all you have to do is apply the Vivid Picture
Control before the final conversion and it will be as if you
used the Vivid Picture Control when you first took the
picture. Complete flexibility!
NEF (RAW) is generally used by individuals concerned with
maximum image quality and who have time to convert the
124