Cropping removes pixels no matter what format you start with, so RAW does not give you more resolution by itself. If your camera was set to its largest JPEG size, the RAW and JPEG generally start with the same pixel dimensions.

What RAW can give you is more editing latitude for exposure, white balance, and color before export. That may help image quality overall, but it won’t prevent the resolution loss caused by a heavy crop.

The bigger factors are:

• how much you cropped
• the original image dimensions
• JPEG quality/compression settings
• whether the file was re-saved as JPEG after editing

If you crop a JPEG and save it again, additional JPEG compression can reduce quality. Some tools can crop JPEGs losslessly, avoiding re-encoding, but that still does not restore pixels lost by cropping.

So: shooting RAW is usually better for flexibility, but not because it gives you extra pixels. For best results, shoot at the camera’s highest resolution and JPEG quality (or RAW), and avoid excessive cropping if you need large prints.