This is now the fourth time I've typed this. Auto save isn't saving, and every attempt to post is crashing the browser. This one I'm pasting into Word to save in case this post also crashes the system, because I'm getting really tired of typing it all out over and over.


Faststone Image Viewer (or photo viewer) is able to view RAW files, and on top of that, it also has a fair range of PP features so you can make the minor changes right there as you're viewing the RAW file.
It's also FREE.
And if you find the range of PP tools not quite sufficient, you can tell the program very easily what your other Editing software is, and with a single keystroke send the image over to your other editing software for a more comprehensive touch up.
I'm finding that I now do almost all my PP in FastStone and only use CS5 now for when there's something that is still worth trying to fix, but is a bit more complex than Faststone can handle.
For free software it is really pretty good.