I'm a newbie too, still finding my way round the features and possibilities while creating a platformer.
I wanted natural looking clouds in the background and spent a bit of time over the last few days playing with this, here's a quick clip of what I've done.
The clouds are completely dynamic btw, you'll not see a repeat and tweakable for weather/level mood (which is what I was aiming for).
youtube.com/watch
(Alas, I'm not allowed to post hyperlinks even though I bought the software, *sniff* #untrusted) <img src="smileys/smiley2.gif" border="0" align="middle" />