I used dd to backup my 60gb HD onto my 80gb spare hd using a boot disk and the command

dd if=/dev/hda of=/mnt/hd/backup.img

The thing that I LOVE about this process is that the result is a viable image for use in qemu. The thing that I do not enjoy is that the image is the full 60gb when I'm barely using 1/6 of that space. I have seen this question asked before but I haven't seen it answered:

Is there a way to use dd where empty space is not copied??

As a secondary note, if someone knows another method of creating a bootable disk image without using dd I would be open to that option as well. Thank you for your assistance.

You should take a look at partimage, it will only copy the used space.