Do most wedding photographers shoot RAW or JPEG? - MORE RELATED Q's BELOW -?

1) What about other busy, relatively high-volume professionals shooting sports, commercial photography, news, etc?

2) To what extent can those who are skilled in Photoshop "get away with" [in their professional work] occasional, low-level to moderate-level post-processing of JPEGs?

3) Ideally, I know RAW is recommended… But suppose I have some JEGS [shot with Nikon D5100 "Large" size, "Fine" quality] that could use a little post-processing [nothing drastic, just moderate-level adjustment of white-balance, contrast, some shadow lightning, minor noise reduction, sharpening, etc -- Generally speaking, will trying to post-process a JPEG generally do more good than harm, or do more harm than good?

4) If there are "tips and tricks" to post-processing JPEGs as opposed to RAWs, where would I find them?

5) Are the differences in the quality of the in-camera JPEG-processors of leading DX cameras [Nikon D7000/D300, Canon 60D/7D, Pentax K-5] somewhat significant or pretty minor?

~ thanks for your answers ~

The Nikon produces the best quality, with proper user settings. Its harder to use than the canon, I do not care for the Pentax. And yes JPG is fine, and if you use photo shop you will do just fine.
for simplicity, I like the canon, more automated features, + photo shop, and bingo. There's a lot you can go, when shooting with 12 to 18 mega pixel.

I shoot sports and editorial photography

I shoot in RAW and use an Xrite Colorchecker Passport to produce a custom balance for each venue I shoot.

I use Adobe Lightroom 3 to process those images, saving them as JPEG or TIFF files depending upon wishes of the client

When shooting RAW, the photographer will get the maximum quality from whichever camera they use

Most of my fellow photographers use Nikon and Canon systems

Here is how the sensors compare

http://www.dxomark.com/...d3)/Pentax

While the Pentax sensor has a slight edge, it when comparing those three cameras, for many reasons is not used by professional photographers Actually if you look around the sidelines at sporting venues, you will see that the photographers there are using Nikon D3 or D300 series cameras and Canon 1Ds, Mark III or 7D cameras. This has more to do with the cameras that are either supplied by the employers of the photographers or the system picked by freelancers based upon their needs.

Here is how the Nikon D3 and Canon 1Ds, Mark III sensors compare

http://www.dxomark.com/...nd2)/Nikon

When you compare the sensor performance using high ISO settings, you will see why sports photographers like the D3s

1. Most shoot RAW. I've shot weddings, and to get professional results it's a necessity. Ever try to bring out the detail of a black tuxedo and an ivory white dress in the same photo with a JPG? Won't happen. But with RAW and proper lighting you can. For those with a good efficient workflow for processing RAW files, high volume is not a problem.

2. For those very skilled in Photoshop and associated plugins for photo enhancement, virtually anything can be gotten away with. The key is just how much time you plan to dedicate to it. You could spend a lot of time getting a bad quality capture looking very good. Wedding photographers don't have time for this, so they get the maximum quality possible in the capture.

3. Post processing ANYTHING can make it look better than simply converting it directly from the camera. Even very quick tweaks in contrast adjust are beneficial, and they can be done in batches. So go ahead and do it. Processing won't hurt a JPG unless you get heavy-handed with it.

4. The concepts in editing RAW's and JPG's are essentially the same. You can even edit JPG's in Adobe RAW editor if you choose to do so. Same workflow.

5. Www.dpreview.com has very comprehensive comparisons of the output quality of DSLR processors. My personal opinion is the differences between the high-end models are insignificant unless you plan on using VERY high ISO settings.