I have searched my manuals and this forum but cannot find exactly the answer I
need.

I have two scenes: Intro and Main.
My intro fades out but the main comes in rather harshly. the client would
like it to fade in.

I may not have set up my file properly: in the main scene i have frame 1 for
main, frame 2 for philosophy, etc.
main is the "home page."

Would I have to make everything on my home page a symbol and fade them in
independently? yikes. I tried grouping and attaching an alpha but it didn't
give me an option. I also tried creating a layer (bottom) in main scene with a
symbol containing white area the size of the movie and putting it on a timeline
to fade and go to main. but, duh, how can you see white fading?

any help appreciated...

you could add a layer above your current layers and center a stage-sized
rectangular movieclip that's that same color as your background. you can then
fade this out (using setInterval() or an onClipEvent(enterFrame)). that would
give the same appearance as everything on-stage fading in.