diff --git a/gemma/multimodal/image.py b/gemma/multimodal/image.py
index ce4182e0..3c338e16 100644
--- a/gemma/multimodal/image.py
+++ b/gemma/multimodal/image.py
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
 
 from __future__ import annotations
 from collections.abc import Sequence
+import io
 import einops
 from etils import epath
 import jax
@@ -23,7 +24,6 @@
 from kauldron import typing
 import numpy as np
 from PIL import Image
-import tensorflow as tf
 
 _IMAGE_MEAN = (127.5,) * 3
 _IMAGE_STD = (127.5,) * 3
@@ -69,11 +69,17 @@ def pre_process_image(
   Returns:
     The pre-processed image.
   """
-  # all inputs are expected to have been jpeg compressed.
-  # TODO(eyvinec): we should remove tf dependency.
-  image = jnp.asarray(
-      tf.image.decode_jpeg(tf.io.encode_jpeg(image), channels=3)
-  )
+  # Normalize image to uint8 range for JPEG encoding
+  image_uint8 = jnp.clip(image, 0, 255).astype(jnp.uint8)
+  
+  # Encode and decode with JPEG via PIL for standardization
+  pil_image = Image.fromarray(np.array(image_uint8), mode='RGB')
+  jpeg_buffer = io.BytesIO()
+  pil_image.save(jpeg_buffer, format='JPEG')
+  jpeg_buffer.seek(0)
+  image = np.array(Image.open(jpeg_buffer).convert('RGB'))
+  image = jnp.asarray(image, dtype=jnp.float32)
+  
   image = jax.image.resize(
       image,
       shape=(image_height, image_width, 3),