Good job at your first attempt.
On Xanthom Designs I've posted a userbar tutorial, which I will be posting on x10 very soon. Check it out, it'll help most likely.
Oh, I see. I've never had any experience with Paint.NET but it will probably be something I'll be learning soon. I'll make an awesome tutorial for it when I learn.
Paint.net isn't too bad, its free and its coming out to be pretty powerful. Impressive. The person who hates installing stuff finally installed something. I should go buy the lottery now.