I'm not an expert either, but I'll try to add to this. The effect you're talking about is called "bokeh". There's a lot of info out there about what's good bokeh and what's bad bokeh. It all has to do with the lens, the focal length and aperture and their effect on the blurring. Essentially it's using a low f/stop (wide aperture) to give you a shallow depth of field so the subject in the foreground is in focus and the background is thrown out of focus. In general, I think it's pretty tough to get good bokeh on a point and shoot, especially if the P&S doesn't allow you to manually set aperture. With DSLR, different lenses have better bokeh than others. I'm just about set to order a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 because it should have much better bokeh because of the wider f/1.8 aperture than the 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 I have now. And please, all you experts out there, clarify or correct me if I'm wrong. I'm still learning, too!