styling img iframe and post text independently ?

styling img, iframe, and post text independently (the_content) ?

1.

so my first attempt was to use custom fields. this way, the client would add in an image and then in another field – add the text.

then i would echo out the info in the loop —

this was working great. until i noticed – that when there was no image… (mainly in safari) there would be a -box ?- to tell me there was nothing returned by img src… (because the echo returned blank)

can i use fields and avoid this problem ???

2.

i started to question if this was a good idea… using custom fields for main content… what if in the future this is a problem…

so i went back to using the_content…

inserting the img iframe(vimeo) and text all in the standard wp field. this skirts the ? box issue… (which i would like to resolve) — but then i can’t find a way to style them independently …

for example… i want the text with margins of 20px left and right…

.entry p and .entry img don’t work… because i think that everything gets wrapped in p. and even if i can remove that — i can’t have my client obligated to wrap their text in p everypost.

any ideas oh glorious wordpress people ???