Could someone give me a quick rundown on how to do this with ms paint?

click on

Image-> Attributes

make your changes there, but be careful, it doesnt automatically keep the proportion

If you want it to look not crappy, use another program.

IrfanView is free and super easy to use with plenty of features
http://www.irfanview.com/
It's not Photoshop but it'll do the job

thank you, sir.

you just use the selection tool (the dotted line square) to in essence "copy" the portion of the image you want. drag the square around, then you drag the "copied" portion to the upper left corner. the click on the border of the whole image and you get a little dot in the bottom right which allows you to adjust the image size.

then what peeps said.