Photographing Tips.

Do you mean having the background in focus and the foreground blurred out?

Usually if you focus on something in the background, then the camera should do that automatically.

But if you mean having eveything in the picture in focus-both foreground and background-then a smaller aperture should do the trick. However you'll need more light or a slower shutter speed or the picture will come out to dark.

 

What kind of camera do you have? A lot of cameras have different settings. I would love mine to do what you don't want yours to do. Some settings are (focus on priority/subject) that may be the issue.

 

I own that model. If you want to do it in-camera, you can resize the JPGs it outputs:

• Press Menu, located above and left of the camera's LCD.
• Press the left or right arrow keys to reach the first control panel (leftmost red icon should be highlighted).
• Press SET on "Quality".
• Choose the size of JPG you want and press SET.

If you shoot RAW, you cannot choose the size of your output; it is always full resolution.

You can use DPP (Digital Photo Professional) on your computer to process RAW files and resize images after the fact. This comes free with all Canon DSLRs:

• Open DPP. Navigate to and select your image (either RAW or JPG).
• Do your edits, if any. You may wish to use the Trimming/Angle Adjustment Tool in the Tools menu to crop and/or straighten your photo.
• File -> Convert and save...
• The bottom of the dialog box has an option to resize the photo. There are also settings to change the output format (JPG or TIFF) and JPG compression level (TIFF does not let you adjust compression).

There are many other programs and even online services that can resize JPGs. There are much fewer if you work in RAW.

 

Can you show us a before and after picture, if you get it to work????

 

If you're shooting with an SLR a smaller aperture (weirdly that means a larger number) will put more in focus, what lens are you shooting with?

If it helps at all I made a tutorial a while ago explaining how depth of field works and how it relates to the aperture.

 

It sounds as though there is lot about your new camera that you are going to need to find out. More than could probably be covered in a thread like this. I would suggest getting a good, readable starter book to help you get to grips with basic concepts like depth of field. It does seem like a lot to take in but, if you persevere and practice, it will soon seem a lot less daunting. How about this one?

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Digital-Rebel-450D-Dummies/dp/0470385375

I haven't read it myself, but I generally swear by the "...for Dummies" books as they present information clearly and in easily digestable chunks.

Good luck!