I had a PowerShotS2is. On my camera there was a little button on the side of the camera for close up and if you wanted really close you would press it again until an S appeared in the little flower.

Proudgm, I'm working on it for you! I'm reading the manual online.

First question: for your flower photos, have you put the camera on the "macro" setting? Next to the screen is the round button with buttons top and bottom, left and right. Macro is the one on the left, it looks like a flower. With your camera, you press that button, then have to use the left or right arrow to select that function again, in the on-screen menu. Once you have it set on macro, the camera should focus on what's really close to it. Each camera has a minimum distance you have to be from the camera, with my camera I have to be at least 18 inches away (that's bad!).

So, set it on Macro, then play around with how close or far you are, and how much you have zoomed in. There's an important note in the manual:

On page 66, it basically says that if you are zoomed in a way the camera doesn't like, it will take the picture, but it won't be a macro picture. Check out that page in the manual so you understand the "yellow bar" they mention. It seems like when it's set on macro and you are zooming in, the zoom bar at the top of the screen will turn yellow at a certain point, warning you that it's not going to focus right anymore.

I dunno if this applies to your camera, but it has to several of mine.

Mine has a little frame in the center of the view that shows what the focus point it, you can press the picture taking (photographer lingo there, hee!) button halfway down and give the camera a chance to focus, then it beeps to say ok, I got it and you can press it all the way down to take the picture.

Stage_rat I have tried using the macro button and have paid attention to the yellow bar. But they don't seem to be as close as I want to get.

dorisl I have tried that also. Still not able to get close as I want.

Proudgm - I have a Sony Cybershot with similar features (I think). I get the best up-close shots by switching it to macro, NOT zooming in, and holding the camera about three to four inches away fromm the subject. I push the button down half-way to set the focus and then click again to take the picture. I watch the screen to see if it looks in focus there before I take the picture.
Here's a monarch that held still for macro. Click to enlarge

{{gwi:334895}}

If I'm taking a photo from a few feet away, I use the zoom but not the macro.