Configuring ShareX with Paint.NET and PngOptimizer
Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2015 6:32 pm
The following process enables ShareX to export to Paint.NET and then get compressed by PngOptimizer. This setup is ideal for users that deal almost exclusively in screenshots. This is meant to highlight some of the advanced operations around the very tweakable ShareX screenshot tool. I’m using Paint.NET due to it’s popularity but other graphic editors will work just as well. PngOptimizer meanwhile has been a reliable and fast tool for additional PNG file compression.
Before you begin: Paint.NET must be installed (there is sadly no portable version) or another graphics program of your choice and PngOptimizer must be somewhere on your system.
Note: that there is a command line version of PngOptimizer that might work better here but this is just a quickie intro. I didn’t use FileOptimizer as it spends a LOT of extra processor cycles on PNG files that the average user will not benefit from.
Before you begin: Paint.NET must be installed (there is sadly no portable version) or another graphics program of your choice and PngOptimizer must be somewhere on your system.
- Open the main window
- Choose “After capture tasks” and put checkboxes next to “Save image to file” and Perform actions”
- Open “Task Settings...”
- Choose “Actions” from the menu
- Choose “Add” and enter the Name and File Path (C:\Program Files\Paint.NET\PaintDotNet.exe)
- Choose “Add” again and enter the Name and File path for the PngOptimizer.exe file (mine happens to be inside C:\dontbkup\PortableApps):
- Test by generating a screenshot. Paint.NET should open and give you the chance to make changes to your file. When you save your results and close this window, PngOptimizer should open and compress the resulting file. Note that if you do a File - Save As operation, you will need to run PngOptimizer separately.
Note: that there is a command line version of PngOptimizer that might work better here but this is just a quickie intro. I didn’t use FileOptimizer as it spends a LOT of extra processor cycles on PNG files that the average user will not benefit from.