diff --git a/docs/release-control/v6/internal/subsystems/performance-and-scalability.md b/docs/release-control/v6/internal/subsystems/performance-and-scalability.md
index 75b54b99f..837af2e8b 100644
--- a/docs/release-control/v6/internal/subsystems/performance-and-scalability.md
+++ b/docs/release-control/v6/internal/subsystems/performance-and-scalability.md
@@ -263,6 +263,10 @@ regression protection.
     Docker, Podman, and future container runtimes keep the same identity tones
     across Workloads, Docker, and infrastructure surfaces without adding
     per-row styling branches to the hot path.
+    App-container image cells must use the shared compact image formatter to
+    show the image leaf plus tag/version while preserving the full registry and
+    namespace reference in tooltip/detail metadata; table rows should optimize
+    for container/version scanning, not registry path inspection.
 11. Extend workload drawer derivations and runtime wiring through `frontend-modern/src/components/Workloads/guestDrawerModel.ts` and `frontend-modern/src/components/Workloads/useGuestDrawerState.ts`, and extend drawer overview rendering through `frontend-modern/src/components/Workloads/GuestDrawerOverview.tsx`, rather than rebuilding canonical guest identity, discovery routing, or drawer-local normalization inside `frontend-modern/src/components/Workloads/GuestDrawer.tsx`
     Drawer history charts belong to `frontend-modern/src/components/Workloads/GuestDrawerHistory.tsx`.
     History cards must let the plot area stretch to the card height instead of
diff --git a/frontend-modern/src/components/Workloads/__tests__/GuestRow.test.tsx b/frontend-modern/src/components/Workloads/__tests__/GuestRow.test.tsx
index d44252fc3..410eb38ea 100644
--- a/frontend-modern/src/components/Workloads/__tests__/GuestRow.test.tsx
+++ b/frontend-modern/src/components/Workloads/__tests__/GuestRow.test.tsx
@@ -593,12 +593,13 @@ describe('GuestRow', () => {
         guest: makeGuest({
           type: 'app-container',
           workloadType: 'app-container',
-          image: 'nginx:latest',
+          image: 'ghcr.io/library/nginx:latest',
         }),
         visibleColumnIds: ['name', 'image'],
       });
-      // getShortImageName truncates the image
-      expect(screen.getByText('nginx:latest')).toBeTruthy();
+      const image = screen.getByText('nginx:latest');
+      expect(image).toBeTruthy();
+      expect(image.getAttribute('title')).toBe('ghcr.io/library/nginx:latest');
     });
 
     it('shows update button for app-container guests', () => {
@@ -1203,8 +1204,7 @@ describe('info merged column', () => {
       }),
       visibleColumnIds: ['name', 'info'],
     });
-    // getShortImageName('library/nginx:latest') returns 'library/nginx:latest' (last 2 parts)
-    expect(screen.getByText('library/nginx:latest')).toBeTruthy();
+    expect(screen.getByText('nginx:latest')).toBeTruthy();
   });
 
   it('shows namespace for pod workloads in info column', () => {
diff --git a/frontend-modern/src/utils/__tests__/formatExtra.test.ts b/frontend-modern/src/utils/__tests__/formatExtra.test.ts
index ac20c1d2d..214a03e95 100644
--- a/frontend-modern/src/utils/__tests__/formatExtra.test.ts
+++ b/frontend-modern/src/utils/__tests__/formatExtra.test.ts
@@ -101,9 +101,9 @@ describe('getShortImageName', () => {
     expect(getShortImageName('nginx:latest')).toBe('nginx:latest');
   });
 
-  it('returns last two components for registry URLs', () => {
-    expect(getShortImageName('ghcr.io/owner/image:tag')).toBe('owner/image:tag');
-    expect(getShortImageName('docker.io/library/nginx:latest')).toBe('library/nginx:latest');
+  it('returns image leaf and tag for registry URLs', () => {
+    expect(getShortImageName('ghcr.io/owner/image:tag')).toBe('image:tag');
+    expect(getShortImageName('docker.io/library/nginx:latest')).toBe('nginx:latest');
   });
 
   it('strips sha256 digest', () => {
@@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ describe('getShortImageName', () => {
   });
 
   it('handles complex registry paths', () => {
-    expect(getShortImageName('registry.example.com/foo/bar/myapp:v1.0')).toBe('bar/myapp:v1.0');
+    expect(getShortImageName('registry.example.com/foo/bar/myapp:v1.0')).toBe('myapp:v1.0');
   });
 });
 
diff --git a/frontend-modern/src/utils/format.ts b/frontend-modern/src/utils/format.ts
index 7a8e23b98..1f1d9b587 100644
--- a/frontend-modern/src/utils/format.ts
+++ b/frontend-modern/src/utils/format.ts
@@ -274,18 +274,15 @@ export function formatAnomalyRatio(
 }
 
 /**
- * Shorten image registry URLs to show only the last two name components (repo/name).
- * e.g., "ghcr.io/rcourtman/pulse:latest" -> "rcourtman/pulse:latest"
+ * Shorten image registry URLs to the image leaf plus tag.
+ * e.g., "ghcr.io/rcourtman/pulse:latest" -> "pulse:latest"
  */
 export function getShortImageName(fullImage: string | undefined): string {
   if (!fullImage) return '—';
   // Handle case with @sha256: digests
   const cleanImage = fullImage.split('@')[0];
   const parts = cleanImage.split('/');
-  if (parts.length >= 2) {
-    return parts.slice(-2).join('/');
-  }
-  return cleanImage;
+  return parts.at(-1) || cleanImage || '—';
 }
 
 /**