Evaluation - question 6

Question 6: What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I was at a slight advantage when it came to photography skills, being an AS photography student and owning a high quality DSLR camera. However during the process of constructing my music magazine I learnt a lot about portrait photography and how to create an effective, striking image. This would obviously be a significant skill to have as pictures are such a key aspect within any kind of magazine. I learnt about the importance of framing, camera shots and angles, which can alter how the subject comes across - you can easily manipulate how the model is portrayed through these techniques. I also learnt about the importance of how the model is styled for the shoot, the connotations of their hair/makeup/costume and how it reflects the chosen genre.

 Initially I struggled with using photoshop to construct my magazine, finding it complicated and confusing. Throughout this process I gained experience which has helped me use photoshop with ease and gain a wider knowledge of its many helpful features. I was used to making minimal alterations with contrast, levels etc in photography, although had never placed text or other images on top of the original picture. I found myself frequently applying the shape tool to create boxes around text, a convention of music magazines that is used to highlight particular cover lines. I also obtained an understanding of the function of layers, this allowed me to briefly experiment with borders on my front cover. I recognised that it was typical to modify the masthead in order to bring the subject's face to the foreground, so decided to do this to give a more professional feel. It took me a while to realise it simply required erasing parts of the text rather than the complex method of copying layers, rasterizing them and so on.

 I faced many challenges in photoshop whilst creating my final product, I realised I could not adjust the size of any images that were placed on top of my original picture - for example the bar code label, and ended up having to work with the sizes on offer. I still haven't overcome this particular issue. To begin with I was not aware that on each occasion that you wanted to develop the content of a text box you would have to select that layer, this interfered with the production of my project as it was time consuming at first - some times it was difficult to find the corresponding layer. I couldn't figure out which tool was used for airbrushing to correct blemishes and give a more sophisticated appearance. I overcame this problem with trial and error. Overall, photoshop is a very useful and fairly simplistic programme as long as you are patient and willing to spend time working out the functions it has to offer.

 As well as digital photography, photoshop and inDesign attempts I used the blogging website, Blogger that enabled me to present all of my work in an orderly, structured manner. I have learnt about how to embed content from various other websites such as Slide share and Prezi. It helped me to understand how to create pages that were detailed yet easy to follow.