Preliminary Task

In Thursday's double lesson we were given the time to start and complete our preliminary task.
I think i started off well, getting all the photos ready on seperate windows on photoshop, from here i could tell what would look good together, from this step i realised that two of my photos did not fit with the general mould that i was going for, and therefore i left them out.
When i started to transfer all the photos to my main window i was really happy with the way they worked together, i believe i got the fon size and colour just right, i was also happy with the article headings that accompanied my photos.
With all this in mind i was ready to finish, then i realised my bacjground was still plain, and looking round others looked like they put a lot of effort into theirs, so i set about changing mine, however there was no 'background' icon in sight, changing backgrounds is one of the things that i've never experimented with on photoshop, this resulted in me using the gradient tool, which does fill the whole background but never looks hugely professional. In the end i think i spent nearly half an hour experimenting with different colours and finally settled with one that was easily a case of 'the best of the worse' and the background colour is probably the thing i am most disappointed with, but luckily this is only the preliminary task so i hope that when the main task comes i can remember the difficulties i had with trying to find a background and be more prepared.
Another factor i believe i could have improved is my contents page, which i had an extension of about 20 minutes into lunch time to finish, but the prospect of me eating my lunch was fresh in my mind, so i'm ashamed to admit i did rush my contents page and it did not involve a huge amount of planning like my front cover did.
However i believe both of these weaknesses can be worked on, and hopefully by the time the main task needs to be completed i would have revised these issues.