The Process of Designing my School Magazine Cover Issy OSullivan

The first step of the process was to design the magazine cover layout:

The second step was to capture the main image, I did this by following my pre-planed front cover shot. I ended up with the following pictures.....

This is the photograph I decided to use... I chose to use this picture as Tina looks very happy and is showing a positive attitude towards entering the school. I asked her to hold some folders as I thought it made it more obvious that the magazine was about school. I chose to use a high angle shot however, I did not do this to make Tina look small and inferior but so when she looked into the lens of the camera she was looking upwards rather than down. I thought this would be a more optimistic shot, I also think that Tina looking up suggests that she has high aspirations for herself. My final reason for using this photograph for the main image of my school magazine was because I liked the lighting, it is very bright and encouraging adding to the overall positive tone.

Editing My Main Image

Step One: Removing bag’s around the eyes As this picture shows Tina has some small bag’s underneath her eyes to fix this I used the spot healing brush tool.

Step One: Removing bag’s around the eyes I chose to use the second setting on the spot healer brush tool as it replaces pixels with ones that I can select myself rather than adding a blur over the area.

Step Two: Teeth Whitening I decided to whiten Tina’s teeth slightly as it is a large picture and I wanted her smile to stand out.

I used the magic lasso tool to select Tina’s teeth

I then went on to Enhance > Adjust Colour > Replace Colour...> Replacement > Lightness.

Step Three: Adjusting colour for skin tone As the print screen shows on the day of the photo shoot Tina had a very noticeable tan line which I decided was essential to fix.

I used the magic lasso tool to select the paler area of Tina’s hand and then went to Enhance > Adjust Colour > Adjust Colour For Skin Tone > Increase Tan

I also quickly used the clone tool to blend the two colours together as I did not find a complete match for the skin tone.

Step Four: Finishing Touches I wanted Tina to be closer to the edge of the front cover as I had designed it so the main image was in the middle of the natural eye flow of a “C” Shape, I also adjusted the contrast of the entire image.

Step Five: Adding the text This print screen shows my finished magazine cover after I have edited the main image and added the text.