I'm not sure what the proper term for it is.
What I'm trying to do is write sample over top of some images but still have it transparent enough to see the small items underneath.
I have photoshop cs, image ready cs2 and microsoft gif animator.
Can anyone please explain for me in detail or link me to some tutorials.
Any information or suggestions is appreciated. <3

If you work in image ready or photoshop, you can do that from the layers palette. You can show it pressing F7 or from the windows> layers menu.

Select the layer you text is on, look at the top of the palette and search an "opacity" textbox. Lower the setting and you're done.

If the text has to overlap a transparent background, you may be better off using a layer mask, though.

http://www.lunacore.com/photoshop/tutorials/tut003.htm

Thank you very much. I'm playing around with it now.
Photoshop's so big, I'm still trying to find my way around. ^^'