I have read quite a bit about updates without child themes and am a bit concerned that i will be producing sites for people and things will revert.

I would like to:

- divide the centre of the image in to two and have text on left and image on right, what is the best way of doing this?

Thanks

With Atahualpa all the settings are stored in the Db so all the settings will still be there if you update. The only things you have to "fix" after an upgrade, unless you have modified theme files (which we don't recommend) are the images you have uploaded to any of the theme folders (header images, favicon, logo, etc). Also if you do a manual upgrade as mentioned in the FAQ you are doubly safe. This is the method I use.

To have a banner (if that is what you mean) as you mentioned add a two celled New Widget Area in place of %image and then use widgets to put in the content.

I am still finding my feet so I am not too sure how to add a two celled New Widget Area in place of %image and then use widgets to put in the content.

is it complex?

The best way to learn this is to play with it. Read teh on screen documentation and try it and see what happens

heaven knows that's how I learned it.