iCloud - Screenshots of PDFs Automatically Saving to my iCloud/Downloads Folder as Exact Copies of the Entire PDF the Screenshot Came From

I do a lot of notetaking on Notion, Obsidian, Notability, etc. for university. No matter the case, I am taking notes off of PDF slides for each unit I am studying. I screenshot any important diagrams, graphs, images so that I can put them beside my notes. I download all my PDFs from Chrome (off my school's website), where I then airdrop the files to my iPad, and save them LOCALLY, not on iCloud. The problem I have is that every single screenshot is saving as an identical copy of the PDF it came from, with the same size as well. I started noticing how quickly my iCloud was filling up, and even with the 50 gig option I'm already at 28 gb. I've turned off iCloud backup to my ipad, I've been told to disable download settings for Safari, but I still don't have a concrete solution. I don't want to disable anything like Photos, or Files, or any other backup without being 100% sure that'll fix the problem, in fear that I might accidentally delete huge amounts of pictures necessary for my studies.

Thank you for your help.