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

I used a lot of different tools on Photoshop and also some on Microsoft Publisher to edit my magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread. I tried to use a variety of techniques to show how I was able to do lots of different things. I used these techniques as real magazines would so this follows the conventions of a magazine because it made my product look as professional as it could.

An example of a tool I used a lot was the spot healing brush to get rid of any spots that I wanted to get rid of, and also used it to heal the cracked lips of my artist on the front cover. I used this to make my artist look as good as they could, as a real magazine would airbrush the artist’s imperfections, so this made my magazine look as real as possible. I also used this tool on my contents page and double page spread to show consistency and to make it look professional and done to a high standard. This tool was a great tool to use, and also learnt from it that it doesn’t just erase spots, it can also be used to erase hairs that are out of place for example.

BEFORE AFTER

Another tool I used was the basic shape tool to put shapes onto my front cover, contents page and double page spread. I used Publisher to create the stars and heart shapes for my front page, which fitted in with my audience and appealed to them because of the kind of shapes they are, and are associated with girls and are stereotypically ‘girly’ shapes. The shapes I used were consistent with the colour choice I had, to make sure that the different pages flowed and had the same colours as the others. I used these colours to bring the page to life as the colours are very vibrant, and these are the two colours that appear most in my product.

Front cover

Contents pageDouble page spread

I used the Eraser Tool on my products to rub out things I didn’t need, which was useful for me as some of the shapes I had needed parts cutting off. I used this a lot on the shapes I transferred from Publisher to Photoshop, because they had white backgrounds on them and I only wanted the shape. Before using this tool (if I was selecting a straight piece that I needed the white erasing), I would use the ‘Rectangular Marquee Tool’ to select the area so that I wouldn’t make the line go wonky and look weird. I would then make the eraser quite large and erase the unwanted area, which was easy as it would only erase the section in the area I had selected. This was a new technique I used, as before I had always tried to erase things manually, which ended up making the product not look as neat.

Example

An obvious tool I used was the Text Tool (called Horizontal Type Tool on Photoshop). This was how I put words onto the front cover, contents page and double page spread. I was able to change the size, colour and font of the text which I thought was good as it allowed me to play around and see which one looked best and worked. I did the masthead on Publisher and copied it across to Photoshop as I found a font on Publisher I really liked. I chose to do the masthead in pink because of the audience for my magazine. For the main body of text, I chose the question titles to be in a bright pink colour to catch the reader’s eye and to be consistent with the colour choice. I made the text for the answers a plain black, as this is a conventional colour in magazines. I chose the font for my product by clicking on lots of different ones that looked like they would be suitable, and then finally got down to one font that looked and worked the best. This font is quite girly, as it is curly and looks like handwriting which gives it a personal touch.

A tool I used on my media product was the ‘Quick Selection Tool’. I used this on my front cover of my magazine because I wanted to change the background colour. This was because it was an off white colour and one of my thoughts for backgrounds was a solid colour, as having something in the background like a building or something would take the focus off the main artist. This is an example of how I used this tool, as the background had shadows on it so looked a bit rubbish. I made the background a bright pink so that the reader’s eyes are drawn to it but it doesn’t take the focus off the artist; it makes you look at her.

BEFORE AFTER

Layers were a vital part of making all three of my products. To make sure that things appeared where they were supposed to, I had to make sure the layers were in the right place. This was something new to me when making the product as Photoshop isn’t something I have used much, except from creating my college magazine and doing a perfume advert. The layers on Photoshop are like pieces of paper; the ones at the top are on top of the ones underneath, so these overlay them. I named each layer with what it was so that I knew which layer to click when I wanted to move or edit something.

Example

I used this on my products to make sure the colours were consistent and flowed. For example on my front cover I used this because I had to fill in parts of the image to make it pink, as they were white and dull. On the right is an example of how I used this. If I hadn’t used this to ‘copy and paste’ the colour it wouldn’t flow and would be messy, as there would be different colours.