User Friendly Software to do snapshots for posts??

I am still struggling along with my self taught xp experience after having left the computer world and DOS at the crash of my PC in 2000 and ignored buying one until 2003.
Have been doing a lot of reading and into Forums and am doing reasonably well by trial and error and the help of experienced friends.

Now I have identified an area that I really need to address and that is a user friendly "Snapshot" program that I can use in forums to explain my problem.
I was trying to use a proggy called "Print Screen", however there were little instructions with it and I could not find out for example how to exclude the desktop background when I was trying to post my problem via snapshot to a forum and there were all kinds of gadgets with it like zoom, clockwise movement, rectangle size etc. all of which appeared to be for an advanced user of which I am not.
I have looked into Bleeping Computer for a program called Irfranview for Tutorials, as I saw it mentioned somewhere but there was nothing there. I have not downloaded the program yet as I don't know if that is what I need.
I am just learning obviously and don't want to find something too advanced for my needs and would like to have good "help" instructions with the proggy.I am looking for something to take a simple snapshot, which I get asked for repeatedly in posting a problem.

I hope there is someone out there that can put their experienced self back into the shoes of a Noob like me.
I apologize for the mundane question, however that is where I am at in the stage of my learning.

I look forward to comments with many thanks.

 

That's a good tip but if you're still looking for software try MW Snap here. It's small, free, and it works great. I use it often.

 

Good morning or is it afternoon now?

CTRL+PrtScn = Entire Screen
ALT+PrtScn = Active Window

Paste into your favorite graphics application and save; or use CTRL+V to paste into a document such as Word.

I also use SnagIt to do Screen Grabs of a region on the screen.

 

Just out of curiosity, is there also a way to do a Scrolling Window Capture?( In other words, a snapshot of the part of the window you can't see because you have to scroll down). That program called SnagIt that you recommended has this feature, but I was wondering if it's possible to do it on your own, without the program?

 

Snagit from techsmith will do it.
http://www.techsmith.com/download/snagitfreetrial.asp