diff --git a/kraken/lib/train.py b/kraken/lib/train.py
index 28a879ef7..6a892faef 100644
--- a/kraken/lib/train.py
+++ b/kraken/lib/train.py
@@ -458,7 +458,14 @@ def validation_step(self, batch, batch_idx):
             decoded_targets.append(''.join([x[0] for x in self.val_codec.decode([(x, 0, 0, 0) for x in batch['target'][idx:idx+offset]])]))
             idx += offset
         self.val_cer.update(pred, decoded_targets)
-
+        
+        if self.logger and self.trainer.state.stage != 'sanity_check' and self.hparams.batch_size * batch_idx < 16:
+            for i in range(self.hparams.batch_size):
+                count = self.hparams.batch_size * batch_idx + i
+                if count < 16:
+                    self.logger.experiment.add_image(f'Validation #{count}, target: {decoded_targets[i]}', batch['image'][i], self.global_step, dataformats="CHW")
+                    self.logger.experiment.add_text(f'Validation #{count}, target: {decoded_targets[i]}', pred[i], self.global_step)
+    
     def on_validation_epoch_end(self):
         self.val_cer.compute()
         accuracy = 1.0 - self.val_cer.compute()
@@ -476,6 +483,16 @@ def on_validation_epoch_end(self):
     def setup(self, stage: Optional[str] = None):
         # finalize models in case of appending/loading
         if stage in [None, 'fit']:
+            
+            # Log a few sample images before the datasets are encoded.
+            # This is only possible for Arrow datasets, because the
+            # other dataset types can only be accessed after encoding
+            if self.logger and isinstance(self.train_set.dataset, ArrowIPCRecognitionDataset) :
+                for i in range(min(len(self.train_set), 16)):
+                    idx = np.random.randint(len(self.train_set))
+                    sample = self.train_set[idx]
+                    self.logger.experiment.add_image(f'train_set sample #{i}: {sample["target"]}', sample['image'])
+            
             if self.append:
                 self.train_set.dataset.encode(self.codec)
                 # now we can create a new model