I have been trying to add a sand background image to the "dark" theme, and it works but for some reason the images themselves get covered by the sand background. example here http://www.blackwidowtechnology.com/zen
any idea of what i can do to have it so they dont get covered by sand???
i changed the first line of code to be this

/* Dark-style css */
body,.caption{background-image:url('http://www.blackwidowtechnology.com/zen/main-bg.gif');color:#ccc;}
#minigal .caption {background-color:transparent!important;}
h1,h2,h3,h4{color:#eee;}

1) The link you provide does not have a background image.
2) In the CSS code above, is there a reason why you are applying the background to the caption class? That class does not exist in the link you provide. There is a caption id, but not a class.
3) Style statements normally go in the head, not in the body, of the HTML document.

i changed it back to the original style trying to fix it. to be honest though I should have rephrased my question. how do you add a background image to zpgalleriffic without having the background image cover the photos immediately after switching to that photo...

In your css put a line like this one :

`body {background:#444 url(Path-to-your-image/background.jpg) repeat fixed left top;}`

thank you so much, I honestly always way over think zen cart. Its always alot simpler than it seems.