Question 6what have you learnt

about technologies from the process of

constructing this product?

hardware

For my Article, Front cover and Contents I needed to take photos. I wanted to have a HD quality photo for all the photos in a music magazine to give it a professional touch which I wanted to assure. The camera I used was:

Nikon D3100 – Digital SLR This camera was very useful because it gave a lot of clarity in my photos. A feature on this camera is the lenses that is able to zoom in and out so I can take photos from further away from the cover artist but keep the photo from neck up without affecting the lighting in the background.

Camera

To increase the professionalism I used an object called a strobe light. A strobe light allows me to control the volume of shadow I wanted. What I was aiming for was a clear crisp image with little to no shadow and this flashlight helped this. To prevent more ease and better quality of photo I have also used a trigger which sends infra red signal sent to Strobe flash – triggers the flash in-sync with the camera shutter.

Hemisphere 300 – Strobe flash Horseshoe flash trigger

Lighting

Lighting

I needed a constant light source for my music magazine that will provide my picture with the ideal background. I used an artificial light source that can provide a bright light on the cover artists face ensuring that there is no shadows and gives the image a clarity. However without a solid block color background I would not be able to achieve this professional feel. I have also used a backdrop that was the color white and this enables the whole focus to be on the cover artist and nothing else. The soft boxers work as they disperse the light and give a softer, rounder light on the subject.

Soft boxes Backdrop (white)

I used an apple iMac as a system to use the software on and I found it very useful as it enables me to use software that enable me to manipulate photos and text into a document representing a magazine. This is the nucleolus of all my coursework as it allows me to share my documents.

Other Hardware

Software

A very important piece of software I have used is Adobe Photoshop version CS5. This program allows me to manipulate and edit photos, an example of this is on the front cover of my music magazine; I used layers to build up the magazine as well as the levels tools enabling me to change the colouring of the image.

Tools-Magic wand tool-I needed to cut out my image to give it a sharp and professional feel and to allow text to “hug” the image as my cover lines go around the cover image. I used it throughout my magazine as it allows me to crop any photo to the size I want. Text tool-As you can see in the picture below, I used text fonts constantly throughout. I was able to change the font, size of the writing, shape & gap between letters. Another important tool I used was the ‘Stroke’ mad ‘Drop shadow’ effects these gave my text more depth and really made the letters stand out.

More Software-

To research magazines and to find images and text fonts I used the browser ‘Firefox’, I also used it to access my blog, the url for this is- DO THIS AT HOME . Google slides is the program I have used to do my evaluation on, it allows me to present my work is a slideshow format and customise it to my choice.To construct my text in a professional magazine format I used the program Indesign this program has a lot of unique features which I learnt to do, such as; being able to have the text around an graphic or and image. OSK - operating system is the server the Apple Mac is on and it holds all the information and accounts that are on the computer, without it I would not be able to do any work.