The icon labels, with my Xfce default theme, were plain white, no transparency, not so nice.
This can be changed in the ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file. Here is mine:
style "xfdesktop-icon-view" {
XfdesktopIconView::label-alpha = 30
font_name="Sans Bold"
base[NORMAL] = "#aaccee"
base[SELECTED] = "#aaccee"
base[ACTIVE] = "#aaccee"
fg[NORMAL] = "#ffffff"
fg[SELECTED] = "#98fc66"
fg[ACTIVE] = "#d40000"
}
widget_class "*XfdesktopIconView*" style "xfdesktop-icon-view"
You can control the transparency with XfdesktopIconView::label-alpha = x (x = 0 will set a fully transparent label) and play with the font style and color.
