Hi, so I’m a beginner at this Blender program and I’d like to model a human, I looked up on how to add a photo into Blender but when I follow what it says to do, nothing comes up. Anyone know how to fix this? I would greatly appreciate it. 
Were you still in perspective mode? for the background images you have to be in the correct view, ie. front view, side view, or top view, try pressing 1, 3, or 7. on your numpad after you have loaded in the images
When I press the number keys all it does is switch to different layers, I’m not sure if being on a laptop makes a difference.
Being on a laptop makes all the difference.
The keys you are pressing are meant to enable/disable layers. Only the numpad keys allow you to interact with the camera.
You can change that if you want.
There’s an option in the User Preferences window (File… - User Preferences)
Go to the “Input” tab and make sure “Emulate Numpad” is checked.
If you do that your number keys should work properly.
Thank you McBuff that fixed it.