Looking for an image viewer (to compare scaled down digital photos with less image artifacts)

[Ralf Mardorf]

Hi,

I'm new to digital photography and wonder what image viewer to use to
get a first impression when comparing photos.

For sure some subscribers of this list are experienced hobby or
professional photographers able to point me in the right direction.

If I watch a JPEG e.g. a photo of a LCD display scaled down to 50% or
smaller with e.g. Eye of MATE, it suffers from a moiré pattern, while
the same JPEG scaled down to 50% or smaller with paint software, such as
GIMP doesn't. While other photos don't suffer from a moiré pattern, they
anyway are scaled down in odd quality when using an image viewer instead
of paint software. 	

I'm watching e.g. the photos of an EIZO on an EIZO FlexScan EV2450 LCD
1920x1080 16:9.

Exif basic information of a photo.

Make                            : SONY
Camera Model Name               : ILCE-6400
Software                        : ILCE-6400 v2.00
Lens Format                     : APS-C
Lens Type 2                     : Sony E PZ 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 OSS
Color Space                     : sRGB
Quality                         : Fine JPEG
Image Size                      : 6000x4000
Megapixels                      : 24.0

What image viewer is the best, to get an impression of scaled down
images?

Is it possible to display file format ARW 2.3.5 (Sony RAW images)?

Btw. I didn't plan to replace my 35 mm analog reflex camera, since I'm
not that much interested in photography. I bought the camera to make
stop motion movies and I don't have the money for a more expensive and
probably better camera. My first impression is, that this APS-C camera
could replace a 35 mm analog reflex camera, just the lens seems to have
limits and it was annoying to get rid of all that auto-thingies. It took
a few hours of swearing to get full manual mode and it easily happens
that I accidentally push an unwanted button, when I e.g. chose an
aperture. All in all I suspect that I don't need full frame and that it
could replace a 35 mm analog camera for my needs, just a comfortable
image viewer is missing.

Regards,
Ralf