This is how to grab the entire screen as a picture (or just one smaller program) and dump it into a paint program for further cropping, resizing, etc.

Over to the right along the top of the keyboard is the "Print Scrn" key.  Go ahead and hit it once.

Tip: If you have a small window open you want to screen-grab, hold down the Alt key while hitting the Print Scrn key.

Now go to the Start Menu, Programs, Accessories, and select the ‘Paint’ program.  If you have something better, fire it up and open a new blank page set to the same size as your screen resolution.

Open the program to full-screen size.

Hit Ctrl-V or select ‘Paste’ from the View Menu.

Voilà!

To resize a pic, go to the Image Menu, ‘Stretch/Skew’.  Put the same percentage in the top two boxes to keep the aspect ratio correct.  You might play with the ‘Skew’ settings while you’re there, just for fun.

If you know the pixel size you want to resize it to, that’s the ‘Attributes’ Menu, but note that it won’t automatically maintain the aspect ratio.

To save a cropped piece in Paint is a two-step process:

• Highlight the area you want to save, Edit Menu, ‘Copy To…’.  Save the pic in the default format.  Paint’s problem is that it won’t save a cropped piece in JPG format, so we’ll convert the saved pic in the next step.
   
• File Menu, ‘New’.  Load the temp pic, then File Menu, ‘Save As…’.  Select ‘JPEG’ from the drop-down menu at the bottom of the requester and save the pic.

It should be noted that Paint is just a freebie that Microsoft threw in with Windows and while it can do a few basic functions, you’ll want a real image editing program like Paint Shop Pro if you’re serious at all about graphics work.  One of the best freebies around is the GIMP studio.