Being a passionate digital photographer, I was always annoyed by bloated desktop photo processing tools. The browser photo editing experience was disappointing too, because it limits the user to the lossy JPEG format and thus prevents any serious editing (e.g. color corrections, graduation curve adjustments). With rawson.js I want to overcome these limitations and create a full-fledged digital darkroom in the browser using the latest HTML5 technologies.

browser-based previews of all common RAW formats

Thanks to its dcraw "engine", rawson.js should be capable of displaying previews of all common raw files in your browser

easy-to-use editing functions

zoom, scale and rotate the opened photo. More editing functions can be added via an extensible plugin interface.

saving functions

rawson.js runs in your browser, but it doesn't destroy your work. At any time, you can download a JPEG copy of the photo you are editing. Image saving is handled purely by Javascript, you don't need any server-side component for that. New file formats can be added via a plugin interface

post to photosharing sites [Coming Soon!]

rawson.js allows you to post to edited photo directly to various photosharing sites. Currently, we support img.ur, but more photosharing services can be added via a plugin interface.

For detailed, per-version feature lists please check the changelog/roadmap

Will rawson.js run on Internet Explorer?

The rawson.js viewer application will not run on current versions of Internet Explorer (IE 9 or less), because IE doesn't support the W3C File API for local file access. This might change in IE 10.

Can I edit my camera raw photos in rawson.js like I do in Lightroom or RawTherapee?

Not yet. We 've introduced the rendering of real raw image data in v0.2, but there still is a long way to go to support editing.

Where can I find RAW sample images for testing rawson.js?

The camera reviews of Photography Blog and Imaging Resource usually include a few RAW images for each camera model. Rawsamples.ch provides a collection of older RAW images, but hasn't been updated since 2009. RAW images are quite big (30 MB and more), so please do not hot-link these files.

I receive a "script executing warning" when opening a raw file. What can I do?

Use a faster laptop/computer. Since v0.2, we are rendering the actual raw image data, not just the embedded preview. On netbooks/slower laptops it might take minutes until a raw image is opened. We are working on a mechanism to optimize the rendering of raw images for slower systems.

Update to the latest version of Firefox or Chrome, as the Javascript performance usually improves significantly between the versions.

Make sure you have closed/deactivated Firebug or the Chrome Developer Extensions. Especially Firebug can massively slow down rawson.js

Cross your fingers and try another raw file ;)

Any reason for the name "rawson.js"? What kind of animal is shown in the rawson.js logo?

"Rawson" isn't just a cool-sounding word starting with "RAW...", it is in fact the capital of the Argentine province Chubut, Patagonia. Before starting to work on my then undubbed RAW previewer, I travelled to Argentina and explored the beauty of Patagonia. During the travel, I also noticed certain tensions between Argentina and England. So I decided to name my project "rawson.js" in order to remind the two countries of their shared past (The city of Rawson was founded by Welsh immigrants in 1854)

The logo animal of rawson.js is a Commerson's Dolphin (Cephalorhynchus commersonii), whose very distinctive patterning might remind one of the Bayer filters used in Digital photography.

The following table shows all Camera RAW file types, that are (theoretically) supported by rawson.js. Because the RAW decoding component of rawson is a direct port of dcraw.c, it inherits all functionality from it.

For a detailed list of supported cameras, consult dcraw's supported cameras page.
The file extensions and their descriptions have been taken from ExifTool's Supported File Types

Extension	File Format /Manufacturer
.3fr	Hasselblad 3F Raw Image
.ari	ARRI Raw Image
.arw	Sony Alpha RAW
.crw, .ciff	Camera RAW Image File Format (CIFF)
.cr2	Canon Raw 2
.dcr	Kodak Digital Camera RAW
.dng	Adobe Digital Negative
.eip	Capture One Enhanced Image Package
.fff	Hasselblad Flexible File Format
.iiq	Phase One Intelligent Image Quality RAW
.k25	Kodak DC25 RAW
.kdc	Kodak Digital Camera RAW
.mef	Mamiya (RAW) Electronic Format
.mos	Creo Leaf Mosaic
.mrw	Minolta RAW
.nef	Nikon (RAW) Electronic Format
.nrw	Nikon RAW (2)
.orf	Olympus RAW Format
.pef	Pentax (RAW) Electronic Format
.raf	FujiFilm RAW Format
.raw	Kyocera Contax N Digital RAW or Panasonic RAW
.rw1	Panasonic Raw 1
.rw2	Panasonic Raw 2
.rwz	Rawzor compressed image
.sr2	Sony RAW 2
.srf	Sony RAW Format
.srw	Samsung RAW Format
.x3f	Sigma/Foveon RAW Format

• Dave Coffin for writing and maintaining dcraw.c
• Gabriela Lucano for designing the rawson.js logo
• gulrotkake for reworking the dcraw.c -> dcraw.js compilation