.RW2

Introduction

RW2 is the raw photo format of Panasonic’s Lumix cameras. It holds the data from the camera’s sensor before any processing, with the camera settings and a JPEG preview. Panasonic has not published the format.

Structure

An RW2 file is laid out like a little-endian TIFF file, with image file directories (IFDs) of tags. The header differs from TIFF in its magic number: the file starts with 49 49 55 00 (IIU) where TIFF has 49 49 2A 00. Panasonic’s own tags in the first IFD give the sensor size and the location of the raw data, and an embedded JPEG holds the preview and the Exif data.

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