Tips on QGD exchange as Black

I'm on the newer side of chess. I don't want to get too bogged down in theory. But I'm struggling with black and the QGD exchange. I like to play the French and find lots of info as black with the exchange and can easily create imbalances. But against D4 i mostly develop in a semi Slav triangle and play the semi or Cambridge springs to some degree. Or if white hesitates to push c4 I push c5 and play a IQP or reversed QG. BUT when I get stuck in the exchange I'm lost. I'm just looking for some development type advice because when I play just basic principles i always feel behind with no course of action. Can anyone just give some basic pointers or development ideas to try to create imbalances like I can achieve in the French?

I think it depends on whether white pursues his minority attack on the queenside with castling king side or castles queen side with the idea of storming down the king side pawns.

In both cases black will castle king side.

If white castles king side, black should look for a c5 pawn push and possibly try for a king-side attack with piece play including rook lifts. Black can look towards making prophylactic pawn moves such as a5 to prevent whites b pawn. An endgame where black has a queen side majority may favour black.

If whites castles queen side, an aggressive approach it can be a mutual pawn storm on both sides. Black should avoid if possible moving pawns in front of king that will speed up white's attack. Since white's queen side castled king is on c1, c5 by  black will lever open an avenue against the white king.

Firstly you have to understand what White is trying to play for.

After cxd5 exd5 White is either playing for a minority attack, or for f3-e4, a plan developed by Botvinnik which has survived the test of time.

Here are 2 classical wins where this method suceeds.

First game, a classical minority attack

In that game you can clearly see that White's main idea is to push his queenside minority, create some weaknesses on the queenside and target them.

Second game, a classical central build up

In that game you can see how Botvinnik slowly builds up his center, and once he gets his central pawns he starts a kingside attack. Great game by Botvinnk.

Now that you know the ideas you need to develop your plan. 

I found this great article online that explains the minority attack for Black in great detail:

http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/whos-afraid-big-bad-minority-attack

And here is a game from the Black side that shows some of the ideas for Black if White tries to buildup his center.

Basically you want to centralize your rooks open the "d" & "e" files for them, and pressure thos big mighty pawns, that looks strong, but may turn out to be a weakness. Note White cant mobilize them without weakening some squares, for example, the e5 push just weakens the d5 square.

You should also look up some other games and note the common developing scheme Black usually adopts. Bring the queen's knight to f8 from where it can go to either d7 or g6 depending on the circumstances, put the light squared bishop on e6, a dark squared bishop exchange would help in almost all cases, specially in the minority attack, as that opens the d8-h4 diagonal for your queen, which allows it to quickly go to the kingside and get some play with a kingside attack.