diff --git a/studio/backend/core/inference/diffusion.py b/studio/backend/core/inference/diffusion.py
index c09f12231a..59767274af 100644
--- a/studio/backend/core/inference/diffusion.py
+++ b/studio/backend/core/inference/diffusion.py
@@ -243,6 +243,27 @@ def _snap_to_multiple(img: Any, multiple: int = 16) -> Any:
     return img
 
 
+def _clamp_max_side(img: Any, max_side: int) -> Any:
+    """Downscale a PIL image so its longest side is <= ``max_side``, preserving aspect ratio
+    (high-quality resample); a no-op when it already fits.
+
+    img2img / inpaint take their OUTPUT size from the uploaded image, so without a bound an
+    oversized upload (up to the 4096/side decode cap -- 4x the txt2img 2048 ceiling, ~16x the
+    area) drives a proportionally larger latent and O(n^2) attention that OOMs the transformer/
+    VAE on a normal card, surfacing only as an opaque 500. Clamping the longest side to the same
+    2048 ceiling txt2img enforces (and upscale caps to) keeps these workflows bounded."""
+    from PIL import Image
+
+    w, h = img.size
+    longest = max(w, h)
+    if longest <= max_side:
+        return img
+    scale = max_side / float(longest)
+    nw = max(1, int(round(w * scale)))
+    nh = max(1, int(round(h * scale)))
+    return img.resize((nw, nh), Image.LANCZOS)
+
+
 # A small allowlist of well-known official base repos that may load as a full
 # (non-GGUF) pipeline even though they are not under ``unsloth/``. These are
 # safetensors-only checkpoints from their original publisher (no pickle, no remote
@@ -2675,6 +2696,12 @@ class DiffusionBackend:
                 # txt2img/reference use the validated slider size; upscale already produced a /16
                 # target. The mask is matched to the snapped image so inpaint stays aligned.
                 if init_pil is not None and workflow in ("img2img", "inpaint", "edit"):
+                    # img2img/inpaint derive the OUTPUT size from the uploaded image, so bound the
+                    # longest side to txt2img's own 2048 ceiling first -- otherwise a normal phone
+                    # photo (up to the 4096/side decode cap) drives an OOM-scale latent and an
+                    # opaque 500. edit is exempt: its pipeline resizes the input to ~1MP internally.
+                    if workflow in ("img2img", "inpaint"):
+                        init_pil = _clamp_max_side(init_pil, 2048)
                     init_pil = _snap_to_multiple(init_pil, 16)
                     if mask_pil is not None and mask_pil.size != init_pil.size:
                         from PIL import Image as _PILImage
diff --git a/studio/backend/core/inference/diffusion_precision.py b/studio/backend/core/inference/diffusion_precision.py
index 68f6307526..24df29d26e 100644
--- a/studio/backend/core/inference/diffusion_precision.py
+++ b/studio/backend/core/inference/diffusion_precision.py
@@ -288,9 +288,19 @@ def _cast_fp8(encoder: Any, target: Any) -> None:
 def _cast_nvfp4(encoder: Any, target: Any) -> None:
     # Weight-only NVFP4: linear weights become 4-bit (packed) NVFP4 tensors and run
     # on Blackwell FP4 tensor cores; norms / embeddings (not nn.Linear) are untouched.
+    # Exclude the VLM vision tower / lm_head / T5 wo and the sub-512 projections, exactly like
+    # the int8 / fp8 torchao TE modes -- 4-bit-ing a VLM encoder's image tower (qwen-image /
+    # qwen-image-edit's Qwen2.5-VL) degrades the image/edit conditioning the sibling schemes
+    # deliberately protect, and require_bf16 skips any non-bf16 Linear the encoder keeps so the
+    # NVFP4 (scaled_mm-family) cast engages on the bf16 linears instead of aborting the pass.
     from torchao.quantization import quantize_
     from torchao.prototype.mx_formats import NVFP4WeightOnlyConfig
-    quantize_(encoder, NVFP4WeightOnlyConfig())
+    from .diffusion_transformer_quant import DEFAULT_MIN_LINEAR_FEATURES, make_filter_fn
+
+    filter_fn = make_filter_fn(
+        DEFAULT_MIN_LINEAR_FEATURES, _te_exclude_tokens(encoder), require_bf16 = True
+    )
+    quantize_(encoder, NVFP4WeightOnlyConfig(), filter_fn = filter_fn)
 
 
 def _warn(logger: Any, what: str, exc: Exception) -> None:
diff --git a/studio/backend/tests/test_diffusion_backend.py b/studio/backend/tests/test_diffusion_backend.py
index 4973f7bd94..2d18ba0772 100644
--- a/studio/backend/tests/test_diffusion_backend.py
+++ b/studio/backend/tests/test_diffusion_backend.py
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ from core.inference.diffusion import (
     DiffusionBackend,
     _LoadState,
     _base_file_downloaded,
+    _clamp_max_side,
     _resolve_base_repo,
     _resolve_diffusion_compute_dtype,
 )
@@ -42,6 +43,22 @@ from core.inference.diffusion_families import (
 # Pure family helpers
 
 
+def test_clamp_max_side_bounds_oversized_init():
+    # img2img / inpaint derive the OUTPUT size from the uploaded image; an oversized upload
+    # (up to the 4096/side decode cap = 4x the txt2img 2048 ceiling) would drive an OOM-scale
+    # latent. _clamp_max_side bounds the longest side to 2048, preserving aspect ratio.
+    from PIL import Image
+
+    # A 12MP-shaped landscape photo -> longest side clamped to 2048, 4:3 aspect preserved.
+    out = _clamp_max_side(Image.new("RGB", (4096, 3072)), 2048)
+    assert out.size == (2048, 1536)
+    # A portrait upload clamps on its longest (height) side.
+    assert _clamp_max_side(Image.new("RGB", (1000, 4000)), 2048).size == (512, 2048)
+    # An image already within bound is returned unchanged (no needless resample).
+    small = Image.new("RGB", (768, 512))
+    assert _clamp_max_side(small, 2048) is small
+
+
 def test_detect_family_from_repo_id():
     # Detection is by architecture; Turbo/full and schnell/dev map to one family.
     assert detect_family("unsloth/Z-Image-Turbo-GGUF").name == "z-image"
diff --git a/studio/backend/tests/test_diffusion_precision.py b/studio/backend/tests/test_diffusion_precision.py
index 2561352b76..e32cab76d0 100644
--- a/studio/backend/tests/test_diffusion_precision.py
+++ b/studio/backend/tests/test_diffusion_precision.py
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ from core.inference.diffusion_precision import (
     TE_QUANT_INT8,
     TE_QUANT_NVFP4,
     _cast_int8_selective,
+    _cast_nvfp4,
     _keep_bf16_block_fqns,
     normalize_te_quant,
     quantize_text_encoders,
@@ -68,13 +69,20 @@ def _stub_casters(monkeypatch, recorder):
     hooks.apply_layerwise_casting = lambda module, **kw: recorder.append(("fp8", module))
     monkeypatch.setitem(sys.modules, "diffusers.hooks", hooks)
     monkeypatch.setitem(sys.modules, "diffusers.hooks.layerwise_casting", casting)
-    # torchao nvfp4
+    # torchao nvfp4 -- quantize_ now receives the vision-tower exclusion filter_fn; accept + ignore.
     tq = types.ModuleType("torchao.quantization")
-    tq.quantize_ = lambda module, config: recorder.append(("nvfp4", module))
+    tq.quantize_ = lambda module, config, filter_fn = None: recorder.append(("nvfp4", module))
     mx = types.ModuleType("torchao.prototype.mx_formats")
     mx.NVFP4WeightOnlyConfig = lambda: "nvfp4cfg"
     monkeypatch.setitem(sys.modules, "torchao.quantization", tq)
     monkeypatch.setitem(sys.modules, "torchao.prototype.mx_formats", mx)
+    # _cast_nvfp4 / _cast_fp8_dynamic pull the shared linear filter from the transformer-quant module.
+    dtq = types.ModuleType("core.inference.diffusion_transformer_quant")
+    dtq.DEFAULT_MIN_LINEAR_FEATURES = 512
+    dtq.make_filter_fn = lambda min_features, exclude = (), *, require_bf16 = False: (
+        lambda module, fqn = "": True
+    )
+    monkeypatch.setitem(sys.modules, "core.inference.diffusion_transformer_quant", dtq)
 
 
 # ── normalisation ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
@@ -308,7 +316,7 @@ def _stub_transformer_quant(monkeypatch, captured):
     dtq._make_quant_config = lambda scheme, *a, **k: f"cfg:{scheme}"
     dtq.exclude_tokens_for_scheme = lambda scheme: ("modulation",)
 
-    def _make_filter_fn(min_features, exclude_name_tokens = ()):
+    def _make_filter_fn(min_features, exclude_name_tokens = (), *, require_bf16 = False):
         def _f(module, fqn = ""):
             return not any(tok in fqn for tok in exclude_name_tokens)
 
@@ -329,6 +337,10 @@ def _stub_transformer_quant(monkeypatch, captured):
 
     tq.quantize_ = _quantize_
     monkeypatch.setitem(sys.modules, "torchao.quantization", tq)
+    # _cast_nvfp4 builds its config from here.
+    mx = types.ModuleType("torchao.prototype.mx_formats")
+    mx.NVFP4WeightOnlyConfig = lambda: "nvfp4cfg"
+    monkeypatch.setitem(sys.modules, "torchao.prototype.mx_formats", mx)
 
 
 def test_int8_filter_keeps_blocks_and_towers_dense(monkeypatch):
@@ -353,3 +365,26 @@ def test_int8_filter_keeps_blocks_and_towers_dense(monkeypatch):
     assert ff(object(), "visual.blocks.0.attn.qkv") is False
     assert ff(object(), "lm_head") is False
     assert ff(object(), "model.decoder.wo") is False
+
+
+def test_nvfp4_filter_keeps_vision_tower_dense(monkeypatch):
+    # Weight-only NVFP4 on a text encoder must exclude the VLM vision tower / lm_head / T5 "wo"
+    # like the int8 / fp8 torchao TE modes -- 4-bit-ing a qwen-image(-edit) Qwen2.5-VL image tower
+    # degrades the edit/image conditioning the sibling schemes deliberately protect. Before the fix
+    # _cast_nvfp4 quantised every nn.Linear (no filter_fn), so the tower was silently 4-bit.
+    _stub_torch(monkeypatch)
+    captured: dict = {}
+    _stub_transformer_quant(monkeypatch, captured)
+    enc = types.SimpleNamespace(_keep_in_fp32_modules = ["wo"])
+
+    _cast_nvfp4(enc, _target())
+
+    assert captured["config"] == "nvfp4cfg"
+    ff = captured["filter_fn"]
+    assert ff is not None  # a filter is passed now, not None (which quantised everything)
+    # Vision tower / lm_head / T5 wo stay bf16; an interior projection still quantises.
+    assert ff(object(), "visual.blocks.0.attn.qkv") is False
+    assert ff(object(), "vision_tower.encoder.layers.0.mlp.fc1") is False
+    assert ff(object(), "lm_head") is False
+    assert ff(object(), "model.decoder.wo") is False
+    assert ff(object(), "model.layers.5.self_attn.q_proj") is True