Well I''m sure that''s not the right wording for what I want to do but what I mean to do is have one bitmap with all the images (for example each coloured block in tetris) and then cut that bitmap and have each of the blocks on its own surface. I''m sure it''s pretty simple but I didn''t see any specific functions for this in the SDK or does this involve the clipper? I''m using DirectDraw7 for this.

Nehe.gamedev.com has a couple of demo games that are 2d that uses this method. The source code is available there so you could check that out.