I tried to locate this information here and on Google, but after many searches, nothing found and if anything it is quite buried.
In any event, I finally figured it out, how to resize the pasted image to fit the canvas. I post that method here in the event anyone else needs it.
Open image in Paint.net
Choose rectangle select and use the cross cursor to select the entire image or part of it that you want to move and resize.
Cut or copy the selection
Resize the layer by using "canvas size" (Image > Canvas size) or create a new canvas (File > New) to the size you want.
Paste the copied selection to the new sized canvas, when the paste dialogue opens, choose "Keep canvas size"
Once pasted, the pasted image will show a dashed box around it, and if the image is larger than the canvas, the dashed border will be on the outside of the canvas.
Go to one of the 4 corners of the pasted image with the hand cursor
Press and hold "Shift" key, then use the hand cursor at one of the corners and resize the image.
While holding the shift key, you can also move the image into view on the canvas and resize some more if need be.
Finish resizing.
If the image is much larger than the canvas and the paint window is too small to see all the dashed border around the image, use "CTRL + -" (ctrl + minus key) to zoom out the paint window enough to see the work area.
