how do I make main body transparent
 

I have placed a background image and can really only see it on the edges of my site. Is there a way I can lighten the white block that lays behind the forum widgets?

If you want to do that, you have to make a smal transparant PNG image.
Mine is 5x5 pixels.

Then:
Set te color on the desired color.
Set the opacity to 40 / 50 % (or what ever you want, the lower the better you see the background)
---> In the better programs you have this function. Not in paint :)
Bucket fill the image.

Save the image.
In your ACP, edit the stylvars of your layout.
Find: Forums --> Forumrow_background
In there you set the folowing:

Background color: Transparant
Background image: the path and filename of your UPLOADED image.
Background repeat: Repeat
Units: empty
Background Image Horizontal Offset: Left
Background Image Vertical Offset: Top

There you go :)

Note...
There are several settings to be changed.
This was just 1 example.

You can see an example here: www.papegaaienforum.nl

So I uploaded the image using imageshack and followed the steps exactly as suggested and no matter what I put there is no change

How about a link to the page with the problem.