diff --git a/pkg/api/handlers/compat/images.go b/pkg/api/handlers/compat/images.go
index 58bf42442b..7b336c470d 100644
--- a/pkg/api/handlers/compat/images.go
+++ b/pkg/api/handlers/compat/images.go
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ import (
 	"github.com/containers/common/libimage"
 	"github.com/containers/common/pkg/config"
 	"github.com/containers/image/v5/manifest"
+	"github.com/containers/image/v5/pkg/shortnames"
 	"github.com/containers/image/v5/types"
 	"github.com/containers/podman/v3/libpod"
 	"github.com/containers/podman/v3/pkg/api/handlers"
@@ -234,6 +235,14 @@ func CreateImageFromImage(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
 
 	fromImage := mergeNameAndTagOrDigest(query.FromImage, query.Tag)
 
+	// without this early check this function would return 200 but reported error via body stream soon after
+	// it's better to let caller know early via HTTP status code that request cannot be processed
+	_, err := shortnames.Resolve(runtime.SystemContext(), fromImage)
+	if err != nil {
+		utils.Error(w, "Something went wrong.", http.StatusBadRequest, errors.Wrap(err, "failed to resolve image name"))
+		return
+	}
+
 	authConf, authfile, key, err := auth.GetCredentials(r)
 	if err != nil {
 		utils.Error(w, "failed to retrieve repository credentials", http.StatusBadRequest, errors.Wrapf(err, "failed to parse %q header for %s", key, r.URL.String()))