Lightshot is a widely recognized screenshot app for Windows and Mac and, in the form of a browser extension, for Chrome and Firefox, making changing its settings crucial. Though users may not think there’s a lot to alter, that couldn’t be further from the truth. First, you can crop the image before you save it. Second, you may alter the appearance after the screenshot was taken by adding lines, shapes, highlighters, text, or arrows, among other things. You also need to decide whether the screenshot will be saved to your computer or uploaded to the app developer’s image sharing website, prntscr.com. Now, here’s how to change Lightshot settings.
1. Tweak Lightshot settings after taking a screenshot
This is the portion of the software most people will encounter first and spend the most time in. Thus, we decided to cover it quickly, and only the settings you can adjust. We’ll cover them all in our Lightshot user guide in greater detail. With that said, here are the settings you can tweak, from top to bottom left:
- Color – This option lets you alter the color for a line, pen, marker, text, rectangle, and so forth. You can choose one of the usual colors under “Basic colors”, and select some pre-saved colors at the bottom under “Custom colors”. Further, you may click the Define Custom Colors button to pick a color based on R, G, B, hue, luminosity, and saturation.
- Save – This opens a save window, letting you select a location on your computer. Further, you can pick a name under “File name” on Windows and format under “Save as type”, specifically PNG, JPG, and BMP.
- Print – The Print option opens your operating system’s printing software, letting you pick the format, position, pagination, add text, and much more. Useful if you have lots of screenshots to print in a row.
- Share on social media – Though you cannot alter the offered options, you can select one of the built-in social media options: Share on Facebook, Twitter, VK, and Pinterest.
2. Change Lightshot settings via Options
Another section of Lightshot is available when you right-click on the Lightshot icon in the taskbar or dock. After selecting Options… from the list, you can change these Lightshot settings before clicking OK:
1. General tab
There are handy, quality-of-life settings that can make taking screenshots easier or faster. You can put a checkmark in front of these options:
- Automatically copy a link after uploading — If you choose to upload an image to prntscr.com, a direct link will be copied automatically.
- Automatically close the upload window — Only available if the option above is selected as well. However, you can keep it disabled. This merely makes it so that the browser tab closes after uploading and URL copying.
- Show notifications about copying and saving — This will disable or enable minor notifications after you use the Save and Copy options after taking the screenshot. Handy but not mandatory.
- Keep the selected area position — This will automatically save the region you selected last, letting you go back or save it immediately.
- Capture a cursor on a screenshot — Self-explanatory; screenshot apps usually hide the cursor.
You can also change the current language to one of over 50 others from the drop-down list under “Language”.
2. Hotkeys section
This is a tab we covered in our guide on how to change a Lightshot hotkey. It lets you pick three types of hotkeys, for general screenshots, instant saving, and instant uploading. It’s also instrumental when Lightshot fails to register a hotkey. After configuring these once, you won’t need to revisit this tab often, if ever.
3. Formats tab
Very simple tab, only letting users configure two things:
- Upload using the format — You can only choose between PNG and JPEG. Though the former is considered to be of higher quality, the setting below lets you adjust the quality better.
- JPEG quality — A slider that lets you determine image quality between 50 and 100, but only for JPEG images. Lower quality equates to lower file size but poorer image quality. The maximum setting corresponds to top-notch quality but also high image size.
4. Proxy section
This is a setting a user rarely needs to configure. Most people should leave it to either No proxy or Use the system proxy settings (after clicking Configure and loading/setting the proxy configuration). If you’re sure of what you’re doing, you can set it to Manual proxy configuration and set the HTTP(S) proxy and Port. Though there are many benefits of using a proxy, in this case, it frequently comes down to three:
- Bypassing blocks that prevent you from uploading to prtscr.com or any social media website
- Using a proxy to conceal your identity and location when uploading images or sharing on social media
- Encrypting the data transfer between you and prntscr.com or social media to prevent MITM (man-in-the-middle) attacks and ISP (Internet Service Provider) spying