Looks like you’ll need to update the portfolio file to fix the alignment issue. Check out my comment here – https://appfinite.com/topic/portfolio-problem/#post-8091 on how to get that fixed. There was an update in Genesis a while ago, and we had to update the theme to get it working again.
For the Character count – Do you have your settings set to “Display Post Content”? Try that when you add a character count number.