QUESTION 6. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING

THIS PRODUCT?

The photo on the left is the original photograph I took when I did the photoshoot with Lindsey. I like the photo because she looks quite ‘rock chick’ like and she is doing the ‘sign of the horns’ which is very much affiliated with the genre of indie rock. I think her hair and makeup looks good, however I needed the use of the technology ‘Photoshop’ to create the full look that I wanted. To edit this image and turn it into the one on the left, I firstly cut round the photo using the polygonal lasso tool. This left me with just Lindsey on a plain background and not the background from the original photograph. From here I edited her face (more detail on next slide), made her hair bigger using the clone stamp, as it captures a part of the hair and clones it onto the area you use it on. I also used the brush tool to colour her nails in to make them black.

After I had got the photo to look how I wanted it, I needed it to look good on the page too. To make it look more dramatic on the front cover, I played around with the ‘layer style’ and created a ‘drop shadow’. This made the area around Lindsey to look like she had a shadow and when I turned the background grey it looked really good. It adds more of an edge to the photo and helps it to stand out even more. The photo I have used is not pixel perfect quality, however I like that it’s not of a really high quality as it gives it a ‘grunge’ feel and adds to the cover and the genre.

The polygonal lasso tool is extremely helpful for getting rid of backgrounds.

1 2

3 4

This is the transformation of Lindsey’s face from the original photo to the end product. In photo 1, we can see that Lindsey's eye make-up is not equal, that her eyes are tinted red from the flash and there are a few blemishes and imperfections on her skin. From photo 1 to photo 2 I made her pupils black by drawing round them with the polygonal lasso tool, filling the selected area black and then changing the opacity to 55% so that they still have a glimmer shining through. From photo 2 to photo 3, I have improved Lindsey's eye make-up. I did this simply by selecting the brush tool and

changed the brush to a ‘flat point’ brush as it gave the same effect that eyeliner does. I then carefully drew round the eyes to create the desired effect. I especially appreciate this part of Photoshop as it was much easier to do her makeup how I wanted after I had taken the photo-shoot than trying to get it perfect on the day. Then, from photo 3 to photo 4 I changed the lip colour and made her skin look spotless and fresh. To make the lips red, I used the same technique that I used to make her pupils black, by drawing round them with the polygonal lasso tool, filling it red with the paint bucket and then changing the opacity so the colour didn’t look like a block of red. I wanted her lips red as it matched my colour scheme and also went with the hints of red in her hair. To correct her skin I started with using the spot healing brush tool which made her skin look more even and then I used the following website as a guide - http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/smooth-skin/ - and I think it worked really well as her skin looks so much better than from photo 1.

On my front cover, I have used many effects to make my features look better and more professional. My plug is something I wanted to stand out on the page as it is advertising a free gift, therefore it could be the reason someone buys the magazine. I started by using the eclipse tool to draw a circle (a conventional shape for the plug). Then I added the text of ‘GUITAR PICKS INSIDE’ making sure to put them in a way that looked edgy. However, when I had done this I felt it was missing something to get it to stand out, so I went on the layer style and added a drop shadow to the plug. This gave it a black glow around the edges, which worked with my colour scheme and gave it the edge it needed.

I had the idea from something Kerrang had done on one of their front covers, to put posters going vertically down the side of my magazine, advertising them for free in the hopes it’s another feature that would attract a buyer. When I had put the photos on I released they looked bland and did not stand out on or look good on the page. Therefore I did the same as with my plug and went onto the layer style by double clicking on the layer of each photo and went on ‘stroke’ which creates a border like shape around the photo. This put the effect around the photo that you can see above. I then did this to all three photos and positioned them so they looked as if they were conjoined.

This was my favourite part of editing I did when creating my products, and it was making the background of my double page spread. To start, I picked four photos from the photo-shoot I did with Lindsey and separately edited every one of them, correcting the skin, lips, eyes etc. From here I then cut them out of their own background using the polygonal lasso tool and placed them all onto this grey background, placing them over each other so they all fit on. The I needed to find away to blend it into the background so that they didn’t appear too dominant on the page as they were only meant to be a subtle feature. Going through the drop down menu at the top of they layers I found an effect called ‘lighten’ which gave me the effect I was trying to go for. I applied this to all four images and changed each of their opacity's so they were lighter than the original effect because this made it look even better. I’m happy with how this editing worked and adds a little something to the overall double page spread.

I have used many different types of fonts throughout the process of making my products

and these particular fonts came from a website called -

http://www.1001fonts.com/ - I think use of different

fonts is important as otherwise the magazine

will look boring and it will be hard to

differentiate between each feature.

I also used a variety of technologies to present my research and my evaluation questions, many of them websites I had never heard of or used before. Firstly, Prezi, was something I was not familiar with before starting my coursework yet now I have created many Prezi's to display my work. It allows me to create fun presentations and embed them straight into my blog. The next thing I used was a website called ‘emaze’ which I used when creating my costume ideas. I found it easy and simple to use and it created a brilliant presentation that again, I could embed straight into my blog. Before starting this course, I had never before had my own blog so at first I was quite intimidated by the fact everything has to go on a blog, but now I am so used to it. I think blogger is a brilliant piece of software and has made it very easy to display my work how I want it. Finally, YouTube is another website I have used a lot in the process. I have used it for uploading videos like my focus group, as well as finding Photoshop tutorials and artists to use as my feature stories.

Overall, I am very grateful for the amount of amazing technology that is out there now as without it I would not have been able to create the effects and presentations that I have. I think it’s clear that technology is very important in the media industry, as creating a magazine without technology would be incredibly time consuming. Software like Photoshop has been the most useful tool in creating my products aw without it I would not have been able to get everything to the best quality it could be.