i just take a lot of the tuts, i personally write all the tuts on note cards to keep all of them in one place, but i just take the ideas and effects from all the tuts and make them in to stuff, and basicly experiment
when you choose the alignment i believe i just makes it in the style you want, all the text will line up on the left, same with right and center, you have to manually move the text
well if it is the same thing as color dodge and burn then you will have to make a new layer either color dodge or burn, then do you brushes and such. i believe what you want is a feature planed for Paint.NET 4.0