Hi Alex,
Thank you for the quick reply. I tried it with -c 0. I had the brightness set to 2.3 (leaving it at 1 made everything too dark). I did not see any difference using -c 0. Some images came out darker than the result from DCRaw 9.27, some came out lighter and one came out very similar. Obviously, changing the brightness level would change which was most similar. For most files, the version from DCRaw 9.27 (with brightness set to 1) was pretty consistent with the brightness level of the embedded JPEG from the RAW files (the version from DCRaw_emu was not).

Any other thoughts? I'd really like to use your version because of its other benefits but this complicates it.

NOTE: I did not see - c mentioned in your documentation. In the DCRAW 9.27 documentation, it says that -c is used to: "Write decoded images or thumbnails to standard output."