For your spacing issue, someone helped me with this. Here you’ll see a background image that I was using at a template. Look at this:
http://www.joomlart.com/forums/topic/layout-issue-2/
For making your site transparent change the colors as I have below.
template.css Line 903
.ja-content-main {
background:none repeat scroll 0 0 transparent;
padding:10px;
template.css Line 862
#ja-container {
background:none repeat scroll 0 0 transparent;
You really should get Firebug. It will make your life a whole lot easier and save you hours.
Also because of different screen sizes, getting your background image to look correct can take quite a bit of work your graphic design program.
hope this helps
s
