Fuji Frontier B&W prints

Has anyone else seen a weird fault occurring intermittently when
monochrome (pure grey scale) JPEG images are printed on a Fuji Frontier?

It doesn't happen every time, but when it does occur it always seems to
be on files where there is no stored colour information (ie 256 grey
level JPEGs). Most of them do print OK, but the ones that fail are like
some wild psycadelic dream trip.

The original monochrome image gets mapped to a consistent false colour
image palette with abrupt transitions between saturated colours. As best
I can work out the sequence from black to white goes:

Black Purple Blue Green Yellow Magenta Yellow Magenta Yellow Magenta
Yellow Magenta Yellow Magenta

The results are beyond surreal and the staff were at a loss to explain
why they had come out like this. About 1 in 10 shots were affected.

It is a bit like solarisation on steroids!

Thanks for any tips. I am pretty sure I can avoid the problem in future
by not submitting pure monochrome JPEGs. It has never failed on a full
colour image. I could understand if it failed for every monochrome JPEG
but not an intermittent failure like this one.

It doesn't look like a corrupt image file either. The Frontier previews
the image perfectly well - but the print engine chokes on the data.

(apologies if two copies of this thread occur - first copy went AWOL)

Regards,
Martin Brown

Martin Brown wrote:
>
> Has anyone else seen a weird fault occurring intermittently when
> monochrome (pure grey scale) JPEG images are printed on a Fuji Frontier?
>
> It doesn't happen every time, but when it does occur it always seems to
> be on files where there is no stored colour information (ie 256 grey
> level JPEGs). Most of them do print OK, but the ones that fail are like
> some wild psycadelic dream trip.
>
> The original monochrome image gets mapped to a consistent false colour
> image palette with abrupt transitions between saturated colours. As best
> I can work out the sequence from black to white goes:
>
> Black Purple Blue Green Yellow Magenta Yellow Magenta Yellow Magenta
> Yellow Magenta Yellow Magenta
>
> The results are beyond surreal and the staff were at a loss to explain
> why they had come out like this. About 1 in 10 shots were affected.
>
> It is a bit like solarisation on steroids!
>
> Thanks for any tips. I am pretty sure I can avoid the problem in future
> by not submitting pure monochrome JPEGs. It has never failed on a full
> colour image. I could understand if it failed for every monochrome JPEG
> but not an intermittent failure like this one.
>
> It doesn't look like a corrupt image file either. The Frontier previews
> the image perfectly well - but the print engine chokes on the data.
>
> (apologies if two copies of this thread occur - first copy went AWOL)
>
> Regards,
> Martin Brown


Are you submitting the images as straight grayscale, or as RGB with no
color data? I usually submit my b/w copies of old family prints as RGB
images. I scan and work with the images in mono, then using 'mode',
convert them to RGB. Haven't had any problems with Frontier prints. In
fact, I'm amazed at how neutral the Frontier prints are, considering
they're on color paper.

Colin D.