Evaluation, Technologies

From the Preliminary Task to Main Task, my knowledge of Photoshop has increased. I have used several Photoshop devices to improve my work. Firstly I used the tool to turn my cover image from colour to black and white. To do this I had to click on adjustments and click on ‘Black and White’, this then changes the image to black and white, then to increase the contrast between the whites and the blacks you have to change the brightness and contrast, to do this click on adjustments, ‘brightness and contrast’, then move the sliding options to the left and right until you find how you want it to look. Another tool that I used to create my music magazine cover, contents page and double page spread, and didn’t use in the preliminary task was the rulers on Photoshop, I used these in order to make sure that I had spaced all of the elements out equally, on the front cover I used it to ensure that the images at the bottom were equally spaced out, on the contents page I used them to make sure that the feature and the regular articles were equally spaced out, and finally on the double page spread I used rulers to make sure that the image was in the centre of the page, and that I had four equal columns to write my interview. The third tool that I learnt to use was the clone tool, this is used to take out any unwanted parts of the image to replace them with another colour, and this can be done to ‘clone’ part of the image to resemble another part of the image. Within my front cover I used this tool to remove a distraction in the background of my image. And finally the tool that I used the most was the layers tool bar, this is so some layers can be visible and some layers hidden, it all depends of the placement of the layers, I had to use these a lot when creating both my magazine covers, but I had to use this toll the most when creating my music magazine cover as there are a lot more elements within this magazine cover such as six extra photos opposed to just the cover image. This makes the layers tool bar very crowded as there are so many different layers, all in all I have 30 different layers on my front cover, these all have to be placed in an order so they can all be seen by the viewer and are not obscured by any other layers.
For my feature article I decided to do it as an interview, this is because the band that I was interviewing is a new and upcoming band, therefore the audience will not know much about then, and this is a good way in which let the public know and get to know this band. And I wanted my double page spread to look different from normal feature articles, so I decided to put my image on the top half of the double page, and not on either the right page or the left page, this is because I wanted the page to look appealing to the viewer so they are not bombarded by too much text so it will put them off reading the article. I have used a variety of different fonts throughout this process, this is due to the fact that I think that using just one font is boring, so using lots of different typefaces will make the piece more visually exciting for the viewer to look at. The formal address that I have used in this magazine is casual as I wanted to write the way that my target would speak, this is so they don’t feel intimidated by the use of words that they will not understand.
When planning my magazine cover I had to research existing magazines, this was helpful because it made me realise what is needed to make a successful magazine. I had constant feedback when making my magazine; this was helpful because the feedback was from my members from my target audience so I was able to cater with what they would like to see inside my magazine.


Some of my Original Photographs