I wish to add an elongated header picture near the top

[GeorgiosG]

Hello Costa,

Look at the CSS file of your theme.

Assuming that your animated gif is in "images/animated_background.gif" a quick "fix" is to change the body to:

body {
text-align:center;
font-family:arial, "lucida Grande", verdana, helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 14px;
background: #FFFFFF url(images/animated_background.gif) top center no-repeat;
color:#222;
}

That will just place the background at the top of the page.

If you want to replicate the "lighter" bits, as in the link you provided, you will have to do something slightly different.

The basic idea is to layer three "columns" on top of the background and play with the transparency of each column... look at: http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_image_transparency.asp

Good luck,
Georgios