basic roadmap for customizations?

Hi all, especially to Mr. Price!

using latest versions (downloaded last friday) of WP and portfolio press (basic) in firefox on win 8 PC.

I going to be doing some customization, (but have limited WP background, some html and css, and very little php) and am seeking a general lay of the land of what to expect. (don’t leave yet… there are specific questions coming!)

The things I’m looking for I’ve seen working in the sample PPress sites provided, but what isn’t clear is whether I’m seeing things that are basic dashboard features of this theme (some of these I’m pretty sure ARE features, but if I’ve listed them it’s because I haven’t figured it out yet), or which involve customization in the code. For each of the following attributes/actions/effects, what is the easiest/best way to achieve it?

where the possibilities are:

PP-dash (from portfol press dashboard)
P+ dash (could do it from dashboard in Portfolio+ )
css ( only in css code)
php ( only in php code)
Nope (can’t be easily done)

change font family?
change font size?
control exact size/location of gallery tiles?
add text overlays (fixed or hover) to image tiles?
change header height?
use background images in header/page/ or post?
control transparency of bg images?

Before I go on, because I’ve got more— I’m thinking I could spare myself (and you) all this, since maybe it already exists– a similar list of the “control points” for stuff like this. Is there??

Much thanks for any suggestions!
Dan