Issue with jpgs in Olympus Workspace

[Bennybee]

Hi,
I can't figure out why many b/w images can't seem to be opened in Workspace. I can see them all right in the thumbnails sidebar, but not as a large image in the middle frame. When I click on a thumbnail all I get is a white rectangle with (I think) a thin yellow frame around it. Impossible to process them.
Very few b/w jpg images open well, but disappear as soon as I try to process them.
Color images open up big without problems.
What am I doing wrong here please? Thanks in advance.

[Rob Trek]

Can you attach one of the images you're having problems with in a post?

Thanks,
-Rob

[Bennybee]

Hi Rob,
Thanks for your quick reaction. I made a screen shot with 'Snip' and attached it here.
I will attach the suspect photo in a second reply of this thread here. This is what happens : when I click on the thumbnail the picture opens big (in the central processing window), but when I click in that it disappears and leaves a big white blank rectangle.

[Bennybee]

Maybe because it is an Epson flatbed scan? Or maybe because it has already been edited in PS Elements?
Anyway, here is the picture in attachment. Thanks in advance.

[Rob Trek]

Some how the file is being saved or exported as a gray scale image with only 8 bits per pixel.

For now, you can open the white out image in Workspace, then export it into the same directory. Be sure to choose Exif-Jpg and Superfine. Give it a new file name too.

Apparently Workspace can't open 8bit per pixel jpgs.

In the future, when scanning, save/export as full color and not gray scale or b&w. If exporting these grey scale scans from photoshop, uncheck the box that has the epson gray scale profile and it should save as a regular jpg.

Let me know if that worked.

-Rob

[Bennybee]

Thanks Rob. I will look into this asap and let you know.

[Bennybee]

Hi again Rob,
I followed your guidelines and first tried to export within Olympus Workspace, but that didn't work - I was again not able to open and process the new (renamed) image.
I then reopened each b/w photo in PSE9 : 'Image -> convert color profile -> remove profile'
Then I did 'Image -> convert color profile -> convert to sRGB profile' and renamed and saved the photos in maximum quality (10)/Baseline ('standard').
Skipping the first step and going directly to 'convert to sRGB profile' in PSE9 didn't seem to do the job (unless I did something wrong...)

Now I can open and process those new photos in Olympus Workspace as desired.
Thanks very much for your help (I'm not very skilled in post production as you can see). From now on I will avoid scanning or converting images as Grayscale 8bit images. These are old scans (from 2015), so I don't remember if they were scanned like that or converted in PSE to Grayscale images.

Best regards,
Benny

[Rob Trek]

Thanks for the update. Glad it worked out. File formats are tricky.