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A WebAssembly build of LibRaw, powered by Emscripten and leveraging Web Workers. This lets you decode and process RAW image files directly in the browser or in a Node.js environment supporting WebAssembly. With LibRaw-Wasm, you can extract metadata and obtain decoded image data from formats such as CR2, NEF, ARW, DNG, and more.
This package provides an asynchronous API for opening RAW images and processing them using the same robust codebase behind LibRaw.
LibRaw-Wasm's processing is done in a Web Worker to avoid blocking the main UI thread.
Install
Basic usage
import LibRaw from 'libraw-wasm'; const output = document.getElementById('output'); // Instantiate LibRaw const raw = new LibRaw(); // Open (decode) the RAW file await raw.open(new Uint8Array(fileBuffer), { /* settings */ }); // Fetch metadata const meta = await raw.metadata(/* fullOutput=false */); console.log('Metadata:', meta); output.innerText = JSON.stringify(meta, null, 4); // Fetch the decoded image data (RGB pixels) const imageData = await raw.imageData(); console.log('Image data:', imageData); console.log('Image data length:', imageData.length); // Fetch the raw, undebayered sensor data (16-bit mosaic, no demosaicing) const rawImageData = await raw.rawImageData(); console.log('Raw sensor data:', rawImageData); // { raw_width, raw_height, width, height, top_margin, left_margin, data: Uint16Array }
Settings
{ bright: 1.0, // -b <float> : brightness threshold: 0.0, // -n <float> : wavelet denoise threshold autoBrightThr: 0.01, // portion of clipped pixels for auto-brightening adjustMaximumThr: 0.75, // auto-adjust max if channel overflow above threshold expShift: 1.0, // exposure shift in linear scale (requires expCorrec=1) expPreser: 0.0, // preserve highlights when expShift>1 (0..1) halfSize: false, // -h : output at 1/2 size fourColorRgb: false, // -f : separate interpolation for two green channels highlight: 0, // -H : highlight mode (0..9) useAutoWb: false, // -a : auto white balance useCameraWb: false, // -w : camera's recorded WB useCameraMatrix: 1, // +M/-M : color profile usage (0=off,1=on if WB,3=always) outputColor: 1, // -o : output colorspace (0..8) (0=raw,1=sRGB,2=Adobe, etc.) outputBps: 8, // -4 : 8 or 16 bits per sample outputTiff: false, // -T : output TIFF if true, else PPM outputFlags: 0, // bitfield for custom output flags userFlip: -1, // -t : flip/rotate (0..7, default=-1 means use RAW value) userQual: 3, // -q : interpolation quality (0..12) userBlack: -1, // -k : user black level userCblack: [-1, -1, -1, -1], // per-channel black offsets userSat: 0, // -S : saturation level medPasses: 0, // -m : median filter passes noAutoBright: false, // -W : don't apply auto brightness useFujiRotate: -1, // -j : -1=use, 0=off, 1=on, for Fuji sensor rotation greenMatching: false, // fix green channel imbalance (not a dcraw key) dcbIterations: -1, // additional DCB passes (-1=off) dcbEnhanceFl: false, // enhance color fidelity in DCB fbddNoiserd: 0, // 0=off,1=light,2=full FBDD denoise expCorrec: false, // enable exposure correction (then expShift, expPreser apply) noAutoScale: false, // skip scale_colors (affects WB) noInterpolation: false, // skip demosaic entirely (outputs raw mosaic) greybox: null, // -A x y w h : rectangle (x,y,width,height) for WB calc cropbox: null, // Cropping rectangle (left, top, w, h) applied before rotation aber: null, // -C (red multiplier = aber[0], blue multiplier = aber[2]) gamm: null, // -g power toe_slope (1/power -> gamm[0], gamm[1] -> slope) userMul: null, // -r mul0 mul1 mul2 mul3 : user WB multipliers (r, g, b, g2) outputProfile: null, // -o <filename> : output ICC profile (if compiled w/ LCMS) cameraProfile: null, // -p <filename> or 'embed' : camera ICC profile badPixels: null, // -P <file> : file with bad pixels map darkFrame: null, // -K <file> : file with dark frame (16-bit PGM) }
Additional Notes
- Performance: Decoding large RAW files in the browser can be CPU-intensive.
- Memory: WebAssembly modules can allocate a significant amount of memory. Check your environment’s limits if you work with very large files.
Local development
- If you're making changes in the CPP wrapper, launch
compileLibraw.sh(ornpm run compile). It builds the LCMS + LibRaw static libs once intolibs//includes/and reuses them on subsequent runs; setFORCE_LIBS=1to rebuild them (e.g. after changing pinned versions). - If you're launching it on MacOS, make sure that emscripten is installed (e.g.
brew install emscripten) + build dependencies are insalled (e.g.brew install autoconf automake libtool). The pinned toolchain is Emscripten 5.0.7. - Tests:
npm testruns the fast worker reply-routing unit test;npm run test:integrationdecodesexample-sony.ARWin headless Chromium (runnpx playwright install chromiumfirst).
CI/CD
- PRs (
ci.yml): the wasm is built from source and the full test suite runs on every pull request — so you do not need to build or commit any binaries (dist/,libraw.wasm, …). CI regenerates them. - main (
build-artifacts.yml): when a build-affecting file changes onmain, CI rebuilds the wasm and commits the regenerated artifacts back, keeping the checked-in binaries authoritative. - Releases (
release.yml): pushing av*tag builds from source, tests, and publishes to npm (with provenance, via OIDC trusted publishing) plus a GitHub Release. Cut one withnpm version <patch|minor|major> && git push --follow-tags.