Supercharge Your Camera with Open-Source CHDK Firmware (Wired)

The RAW format on these cameras can be useful, but not to the extent that it is on an SLR. The
sensor is pretty small and the 10-bit raw files are quite noisy. Using your own software to
convert the RAW means you lose the noise reduction the camera performs.

I used this on my Powershot A620. My workflow was 
1) The Windows version of dng4ps (linux version wouldn't recognize original JPGs) 
2) ufraw 0.13

So for every shot I save I have four files, the CHDK RAW, a DNG RAW, the original JPG, and my
final JPG.

For underwater photos in which the white balance is really messed up, this combination is
useful, but I'd never use it for a regular picture.