When you take a screen shot by pressing your keyboard's "Print Screen" key, you capture an image that may contain more visual information than you need. Perhaps you only want to show a friend a headline from a news page or an error message from an application. If you use a commercial screen-capture program to snap a screen shot, you can use the program's crop tool to extract the section of the image that you need. There's no need for a commercial tool, though; you can use Microsoft Paint, included with all versions of Windows, to crop your screen shots.
Step 1
Press "Print Screen" to capture a screen shot.
Video of the Day
Step 2
Click the Windows "Start" menu to open it. Type "Paint."
Step 3
Locate "Paint" in the list of search results and click it to open Microsoft Paint.
Step 4
Press "Ctrl-V" to paste the captured image into the work area.
Step 5
Click the "Select" tool at the top of the toolbar to activate that tool.
Step 6
Click and hold your left mouse button while you draw a rectangle around the area of the image that you want to keep.
Step 7
Click the "Image" button at the top of the screen and select "Crop" from the drop-down menu.
Step 8
Click "File" and select "Save." The "Save As" window will open and prompt you to save the file. Type a name in the text box provided.
Step 9
Click the drop-down arrow in the "Save as type" box to view a list of file types. In the list you will see JPEG, GIF, PNG and other supported image file types.
Step 10
Select a file type and click "Save" to save the cropped screen shot.