Tab labels are missing file extensions when not saving screenshots to disk (was: When capturing several screenshots, switching between them degrades quality a lot.)

[dreirund]

Brief summary of issue

When capturing several screenshots, switching between them degrades quality a lot.

Video recording showing that issue:

---

2026-06-04_-_shutter-0.99.7-image-degradiation-issue.mp4

---

Steps to reproduce the issue

1. Have shuttver verion 0.99.7 installed from Arch Linux distribution repository installed.
2. Take a first screenshot of a selection of the window.
3. Take a second screenshot of a selection of the window.
4. Switch back to the first screenshot.
5. See that the image quality has degraded considerably.
6. Switch back and forth between second and first screenshot.
7. See that the image quality gradually degrades a little more.

Error output (please run as shutter --debug)

shutter-debug.log

Extra information, such as Shutter version, display server in use (Xorg or Wayland), operating system and ideas for how to solve:

• Shutter version: 0.99.7.
• Display server: Xorg.
• Operating system: Artix GNU/Linux.

Regards!

[Photon89]

Woah, this looks bad! It is strange that the tab labels include no file extensions. Which settings for file type and file name do you use (please share a screenshot of your config in Settings > General)?

edit: Okay, I can actually see from the log that you are using jpg which is consistent with lossy encoding, but still switching tabs shouldn't actually degrade the files.

A quick remedy is to switch to png as file format which is lossless. But still, this kind of degrading shouldn't happen.

Could you please check whether it's just the preview which is degraded or the files on the hard disk are as well?

edit 2: I actually cannot reproduce this even by switching to jpg as file format. So we'd really need your config.

[dreirund]

Which settings for file type and file name do you use

It has been "JPEG" with quality setting "9".

I don't know why it was at "9". Probably because in the past I had it set to "PNG" with compression ration "9" (best), and something did set it to "JPEG", but kept the "9"?

A quick remedy is to switch to png as file format which is lossless.

Yes, I changed it to "PNG" with compression "9" afterwards.

For the next tests, I switch it back to "JPEG" with quality setting "9".

Anyway, just switching forth and back while the window stays open and still has the pictures in memory should not do the intermediate step via lossy compression.

Could you please check whether it's just the preview which is degraded or the files on the hard disk are as well?

Of course they are, because they are saved as JPEG with low quality.

I attach them for you (not the ones from my original report, but just re-created right now):

• ~/.cache/shutter/Selection_001.jpg,
• ~/.cache/shutter/Selection_002.jpg.

please share a screenshot of your config in Settings > General

• First, my ~/.shutter/settings.xml.

• And the screenshot:

  ---

  

  ---

AND I think one statement in my original report is wrong:

7. See that the image quality gradually degrades a little more.

Regards!

[Photon89]

Looks like before switching tabs Shutter shows a preview of the captured image data, but once switched it unloads it to save RAM and then loads it again from the file which is compressed in a lossy way. So the question is how these settings emerged. The default value when switching to JPG is actually 90 instead of 9 (it is even reset to this default value when switching formats back and forth). Is it possible that you manually set it to 9? In this case, I think there is no issue here, besides of the missing extensions in the tab labels.

[dreirund]

On Wed, 03 Jun 2026 06:03:15 -0700, Michael Kogan ***@***.***> wrote: Looks like before switching tabs Shutter shows a preview of the captured image data, but once switched it unloads it to save RAM and then loads it again from the file which is compressed in a lossy way.

So this seems to be intended -- OK :-). When you really want to save space, I suggest that you add jxl (lossy) and qoi (lossless) as well!

So the question is how these settings emerged. The default value when switching to JPG is actually 90 instead of 9 (it is even reset to this default value when switching formats back and forth). Is it possible that you manually set it to 9?

I don't know; if so than not intentional.

[DarthGandalf]

I think such switch shouldn't be saving the image to disk. Because there were no changes to it

[Photon89]

I think such switch shouldn't be saving the image to disk. Because there were no changes to it

As far as I understand, saving the image happens when capturing the screenshot, it just loads from the saved file when switching to a tab. But looks like while creating a tab, it loads from the captured pixbuf and not from file, thus the discrepancy in the preview image quality.

[Photon89]

@dreirund Can you actually still reproduce the issue of having no extensions in your file name? If so, do the files have no extension on disk or are just the labels in the tabs missing them?

[dreirund]

@dreirund Can you actually still reproduce the issue of having no extensions in your file name?

Yes (but I did not update).

If so, do the files have no extension on disk or are just the labels in the tabs missing them?

Only on the tabs. On disk, they have the extension.

[Photon89]

Right, I could reproduce it, it happens if you choose to not save the files. I'll have a look into it!

[Photon89]

So I found where the tab label is set differently:

shutter/bin/shutter

Line 7595 in aedf63a

if (defined $session_screens{$key}->{'is_unsaved'}

Here we have:

				#update tab label
				#and tooltip
				if (defined $session_screens{$key}->{'is_unsaved'}
					&& $session_screens{$key}->{'is_unsaved'})
				{
					$session_screens{$key}->{'hbox_tab_label'}->set_tooltip_text("*" . $session_screens{$key}->{'name'});
					$session_screens{$key}->{'tab_label'}->set_text("[" . $session_screens{$key}->{'tab_indx'} . "] - " . "*" . $session_screens{$key}->{'name'});
				} else {
					$session_screens{$key}->{'hbox_tab_label'}->set_tooltip_text($session_screens{$key}->{'long'});
					$session_screens{$key}->{'tab_label'}->set_text("[" . $session_screens{$key}->{'tab_indx'} . "] - " . $session_screens{$key}->{'short'});
				}

So it looks like it is like this by design that the unsaved files' labels get no file extension. The question is: Should it stay like this or do we want to change it?