S50 RAW/JPEG image differences

The differences with the JPEG/Superfine are:

1. A different color tint. In-camera generated JPEGs are greener than the same ones generated from RAW using FVU or BB conversions (both use the same Canon libraries)
2. Purple tinted highlights. Apparently there is some bug in the Canon RAW libraries, because the blown higlights ended with a purplish tint instead of pure white. That doesn't happend if the same RAW file is converted in Photoshop CS or in the in-camera generated JPEGs.
3. A better color resolution. In-camera JPEGs use 4:2:2 colorspace subsampling. You can generate a 4:4:4 JPEG file (quality 10 or up in PS) and keep more red and blue information.
4. Less compression artifacts. You can save the files in the highest quality from the TIFF file and keep a larger JPEG file with less compression artifacts.
5. More control. You can change the WB, saturation, contrast and sharpening during conversion, if the original parameters aren't good enough.

You can also generate a JPEG from RAW, and bypass the TIFF to JPEG conversions if you don't plan to edit the picture.

If the plan is to edit the picture, you have also the additional colordepth provided by the 12-bit RAW (if you save it as 16-bit TIFF) instead of the 8-bit JPEG. It's very useful during gamma, levels or curves corrections.