How to backup iPhone 4 and restore as new?

You can try to back up manually by right clicking on the phone in the device list in iTunes. See what is backed up here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766
After that, restore "as new iphone" and use your manual backup again to put the settings and other data back.
The backup only contains the photos taken with the phone (camera roll), see article mentioned above.
If you're still having trouble with content from that backup, restoring "as new iphone" without using the backup is your only chance.
There is 3rd party software letting you extract certain parts from the backup, but that's not supported by Apple.

Message was edited by: Ingo2711

SDAVE2 wrote:
Thank you for the reply. If I back it up, restore as new, then restore, it's basically the same thing as I did before, isn't it?

Basically yes, but your firmware will be installed again from the scratch, and in case your firmware caused these problems, that's one one to rule this out, because the firmware is not part of the backup.

I don't know if I can manually restore the contacts, photos, etc and get them the way it was before?

As long as the info is still on your mac, choose the option to "replace the calendar and contact info during the following sync" in the info pane, advanced section.
The photos should still be part of iphoto library or similar programs.