diff --git a/crates/egui_kittest/Cargo.toml b/crates/egui_kittest/Cargo.toml
index 1a322273a..d32c65a35 100644
--- a/crates/egui_kittest/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/egui_kittest/Cargo.toml
@@ -29,11 +29,11 @@ snapshot = ["dep:dify", "dep:image", "dep:open", "dep:tempfile", "image/png"]
 ## Expose the [`inspector_api`] wire protocol used to talk to the external
 ## `kittest_inspector` binary. Pull this in if you're building a tool that consumes the
 ## same stream — the binary itself enables this transitively.
-inspector_api = ["dep:egui_inspection", "egui_inspection/protocol", "egui/serde"]
+inspector_api = ["dep:egui_inspection", "egui/serde"]
 
 ## Stream frames + accesskit tree to a `kittest_inspector` window for live debugging.
 ## Auto-launches when the `KITTEST_INSPECTOR` env var is truthy.
-inspector = ["inspector_api", "dep:image"]
+inspector = ["inspector_api", "egui_inspection/png", "dep:image", "image/png"]
 
 ## Allows testing eframe::App
 eframe = ["dep:eframe", "eframe/accesskit"]
diff --git a/crates/egui_kittest/src/inspector.rs b/crates/egui_kittest/src/inspector.rs
index 3f27141f1..1882743bd 100644
--- a/crates/egui_kittest/src/inspector.rs
+++ b/crates/egui_kittest/src/inspector.rs
@@ -396,14 +396,28 @@ impl Connection {
             return;
         }
         self.step = self.step.saturating_add(1);
+        let screenshot = image.and_then(|img| match egui_inspection::encode_png(
+            img.width(),
+            img.height(),
+            img.as_raw(),
+        ) {
+            Ok(png) => Some(FrameScreenshot {
+                width: img.width(),
+                height: img.height(),
+                png,
+            }),
+            Err(err) => {
+                #[expect(clippy::print_stderr)]
+                {
+                    eprintln!("[kittest] PNG encode failed: {err}");
+                }
+                None
+            }
+        });
         let frame = Frame {
             step: self.step,
             pixels_per_point,
-            screenshot: image.map(|img| FrameScreenshot {
-                width: img.width(),
-                height: img.height(),
-                rgba: img.as_raw().clone(),
-            }),
+            screenshot,
             accesskit,
             source,
         };