Using SnagIt to Screen Capture
(Microsoft Windows)

First, download SnagIt! from the TechSmith.com web site.

Install it, then set it up for Image Capture

To capture a user define region (by rubber-banding a rectangle with the left mouse) select "Region"

To save the output to a file, select "File" under the Output menu:

Note: Under Properties, you can set the file type (GIF, JPEG, PNG, etc)

You can also set up options (for example, transparency for GIF images)

Under Options->Program Preferences, you can set up various features:

Using the default hot key combination "shift-control-P" you can then take screen shots of any portion of the desktop, e.g

There is another companion product, called SnagIt 6 Studio, which allows you to annotate the images before saving them. This is a very useful features, and hard to duplicate in Linux/Unix.