I'm new to this, so bare with me. When i backup a game, do I need to do something to make it "stealth"? Is there a way to tell if a backup image, or DVD is stealth?

If you use xbox backup creator 2.5, it will extract all the stealth files for you and the image read (.iso) should be perfectly stealthed. You can also use the image tools that are part of the xbox backup creator to make sure the image is truly stealthed after making the backup.