Am I looking at a RAW image...or the imbedded JPG?

Sometimes it's hard to tell.  Some "Raw" viewers actually are just showing the JPG stored in the .RW2 file.

A simple way to tell is to take a picture in monochrome mode, saving as RAW+JPG. The camera will store a monochrome JPG in the .RW2, but the RAW image will still be in color, since it's not processed.

In Picasa, for example, the two FZ200 images on the left are a JPG and RW2 pair. The JPG's in mono. The RW2's in color...but the RW2's imbedded JPG (shown in the column at the right) is mono.  Conclusion: Picasa does show you the Raw image in the FZ200 RW2 file.

Irfanview, on the other hand, shows the FZ200 monochrome image in the .RW2 - so it never looks at the raw image.

Faststone shows the monochrome image in the .RW2 by default, but will show the corresponding raw image if you tap the letter "A"...but only for one image at a time.

Might be worth keeping in mind as you look through your .RW2 files. Not all viewers are the same.

Sherm