Online RAW viewer
Develop camera RAW photos at full resolution — LibRaw compiled to WebAssembly demosaics each one in this tab, with zoom, folder browsing, and a lightbox. Photos never leave your device.
Drop RAW photos (or a zip of them) anywhere on this page
The RAW develop runs entirely in your browser. Photos never leave your device.
A RAW file is what the camera actually captured — one unprocessed reading per photosite, 12 or 14 bits deep, plus the as-shot white balance and exposure. Desktop converters turn that into a picture; most online viewers skip the work entirely and show you the small JPEG the camera embeds for thumbnails. This page is the other kind: LibRaw — the open-source engine behind many desktop converters — compiled to WebAssembly runs inside your tab and performs the full develop: demosaic, camera white balance, sRGB conversion. The photo stays on your device the whole time.
The big four open here — Canon `.cr2` and `.cr3`, Nikon `.nef`, Sony `.arw`, Adobe `.dng` — plus a long vendor tail (ORF, RW2, RAF, PEF and more, listed below). Every file develops at full resolution with zoom and pan, ←/→ walks the folder’s RAWs, and — the part upload viewers cannot offer — RAWs inside a zip open straight from the archive’s file tree without extracting anything. Press F12 → Network while you browse: the only fetch is the one-time engine (~1.1 MB, this site’s own domain), and no request ever carries a photo.
How to view RAW files online
Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for:
- Drop your RAW file anywhere on this page — or the zip it came in — or click to browse, or paste a URL.
- Click the file in the list: it develops to full resolution (the first open also fetches the engine, once, then it is cached).
- Zoom with the wheel, pinch, or double-click; pan by dragging; + / − / 0 work from the keyboard.
- ← and → browse the folder’s other RAWs; the lightbox button shows the whole folder as a grid of real thumbnails.
- The Info button in the meta row folds out the photo’s metadata — lens, ISO, aperture, shutter, focal length, timestamp, and GPS coordinates when the file carries them.
- The status bar offers Download .png — the exact developed render you are looking at.
A real develop, not the embedded preview
RAW files carry a small JPEG the camera bakes in for thumbnailing, and “instant” online viewers usually just unwrap that. Here the sensor data itself is processed: the Bayer pattern is demosaiced (AHD interpolation), the camera’s as-shot white balance is applied, and the result is converted to sRGB — the same pipeline a desktop RAW converter runs. That is why a 24-megapixel file takes a few seconds rather than appearing instantly, and why zooming in shows detail the embedded preview never had.
The meta line shows what came out of the file — dimensions plus camera make and model — so an unidentified .dng from an old drive tells you what shot it. The Info panel (the button beside it) folds out the rest of the shooting metadata — lens, ISO, aperture, shutter, focal length, timestamp, sensor area — without covering the photo. GPS coordinates, when a file carries them, render as plain decimal degrees with no map link: a map link would send the position to a third party, which is exactly what this tool promises not to do.
RAW files inside zips — the signature trick
Shoots travel as archives: a client delivery, a backup, a shared-album export. Most online viewers make you extract everything first, then upload photos one by one. Here the zip IS the workflow: drop it, the file tree opens, and clicking a RAW develops it straight out of the archive. The archive’s search also lists every file by name, so a thousand-photo backup stays navigable — and the icon view shows real thumbnails (the camera’s own embedded JPEGs) before you open anything.
That is the structural advantage of decoding locally: the archive never has to be uploaded or unpacked for one photo to be seen.
Which RAW files open here
The headline four, each with its own page: Canon CR2 (2003–2018 bodies) and CR3 (2018 on), Nikon NEF (D1 through the Z series), Sony ARW (Alpha DSLR and mirrorless), Adobe DNG (camera-native and converted).
The silent vendor tail opens too, no page attached: Fujifilm RAF, Olympus ORF, Panasonic RW2/RWL, Pentax PEF, Samsung SRW, Epson ERF, Kodak KDC/DCR, Leica MEF, Phase One IIQ, Hasselblad 3FR, Leaf MOS, Minolta MRW, Nikon NRW, Sony SRF/SR2. Two honest exclusions: .tif/.tiff are TIFFs, not camera RAW, and Sigma .x3f needs a decoder this engine build does not include — it stays unsupported rather than pretending.
Honest limits
Real capability, real boundaries — stated up front.
- A develop takes time — roughly one to three seconds for a typical file, longer for 50-megapixel medium format; the stage text says which step is running.
- One-time engine download (~1.1 MB) from this site’s own domain, cached by your browser; viewing works offline afterwards.
- PNG is the only export — the status bar’s Download .png writes the developed render; there is no JPG/TIFF export and no editing in this version.
- Size caps (128 MB per file, 512 MB developed pixels) keep the tab responsive.
- Very large thumbnails are JPEG-only: the grid uses the camera’s embedded preview when there is one; a few DNGs store an uncompressed bitmap instead and fall back to a generic icon.
- Encrypted archives prompt for the zip’s password first (ZIP and 7z decrypt in-browser; RAR does not).
Credits
The develop engine is LibRaw (LGPL-2.1), distributed via rawconvert-wasm (MIT) as WebAssembly and served from this site’s own domain as standalone, replaceable files. This page adds the viewer, zoom, folder browsing, and the archive integration; LibRaw does the developing.
Frequently asked questions
How can I view RAW files online without uploading them?
Drop them on this page. LibRaw compiled to WebAssembly develops each file in your browser — the engine downloads once (~1.1 MB, from this site’s own domain), and from then on photos open locally. You can disconnect from the internet after the page loads and viewing keeps working.
Which RAW formats does this viewer support?
Canon CR2 and CR3, Nikon NEF, Sony ARW, and Adobe DNG lead the list — each has a dedicated page linked above. The vendor tail (RAF, ORF, RW2, PEF, SRW, IIQ and more) opens too. Sigma X3F and plain TIFF are the honest exceptions: no decoder in this build, so they are refused rather than rendered wrong.
Is this a real RAW develop or just the embedded preview?
A real develop. The engine demosaics the sensor data (AHD interpolation), applies the camera’s as-shot white balance, and converts to sRGB — it never touches the thumbnail JPEG. That is why the first file takes a few seconds: the tab is doing the same math a desktop converter does.
Can I view RAW photos inside a zip?
Yes — drop the zip instead of loose photos. The archive’s file tree opens, and clicking a RAW develops it straight from inside, no extraction step. Name search works over the archive too, and the icon view shows the embedded-JPEG thumbnails before you commit to a full develop.
Can I see the photo’s metadata — camera, lens, exposure, GPS?
Yes. The Info button next to the meta line folds out the shooting metadata the develop already read: lens, ISO, aperture, shutter speed, focal length, timestamp, sensor dimensions, and orientation when a rotation was needed. Files that carry GPS show the coordinates as plain decimal degrees — deliberately with no map link, so the position is never handed to a mapping service.
Can I download a RAW as PNG or JPG?
As PNG — the status bar’s Download .png exports the exact developed render at full resolution. A JPG export would be a re-encode of the same pixels; for one-off conversions the PNG opens in every image editor.
Does the viewer work on a phone?
Yes — the engine is plain WebAssembly in a Worker, so any modern mobile browser develops RAWs here. Expect the same one-to-three-second develop, a little slower on older hardware, and the same privacy model: the photo never leaves the device.