Nonclient & client area transparency

I'm currently writing a GUI application for a friend, and he wants the application to draw windows much like Windows Live does. By this I mean that the title bar & window frame are hidden/transparent and when the client area is drawn there are certain transparent areas. He has supplied me with a .PNG image that he wants me to use.

I've had a look into processing WM_NCPAINT which I figure is the right way to gain transparency in the NonClient area, but I don't know how to draw it as transparent. I've also found out that I'd have to use GDI+ to draw a .png image, but I'm having difficulty in finding decent resources that use Win32 (not MFC) GDI+ to load and draw a .png image.

It'd be much appreciated if anyone could help me with this.