1. Adobe Photoshop
In order to not only create my final magazine pages but to also edit
photographs to add into my magazine I used the program I used Adobe
Photoshop. When I first started using this program I didn't have much
knowledge of the tools to use, how to use them and what effect they
did. Through out using the program I was able to practice using the
tool by creating practice magazine pages and advertisements. I was
also able to look up tutorials on the web and also apps such as
youtube for tutorials on what each tool did and how to use the
desired to I wanted to use in a professional way. When editing
photographs to include in my magazine I was able to edit them to
make them look professional and like and image that would be
included in a existing magazine of my genre. I used tools such as.
crop, brightness and contrast, saturation, levels, patch tool, spot
healing brush and many more tools to make my images the best
quality they could be. For the actual creation and making of my
magazine page I used many tools. Some I used the most tool was the
shape tools to help me make banners and advertisements on my
magazine, the text tool to help me add text to my magazine, and
finally the page rulers to help me set my page out accurately and help
my page look more professional and like an existing magazine.
2. Camera
The camera in which I used to take photos for my magazine was the Canon
EOS 600D. By using this camera it ensured me that my images would be of a
high quality, higher than what they would be if I had used a camera phone or a
less professional different camera. I am used to taking photos on a SLR camera
as I own one myself and I also study photography which gave me a advantage
when taking photos as I already knew the basics and more of how to use the
camera including how to zoom, focus and take pictures.
When taking the photos i not only had to think about shot size, and camera
angle but I also had to think about location and also lighting. I chose to take
some images out side to use natural lighting and also some image inside to use
lights to see which images looked best, but they both looked just as good and I
decided to use both types of lighting images. For location, I decided to use a
plain light background for some photos so that the models was clearly visible,
and so that it looked like a professional photo. I also used a location of a
bricked wall to add to the grunge, rock look on my photos.
Yet another way which helped me progress with the production of my
magazine pages was the IMac computers. I hadn't used one of these computer
yet so it was a brand new experience. By using this computer I was able to
access and use programs such as Photoshop to create my magazine. I was also
able to save work to my computer so I could access it at a later date. After
getting used to the Macs I was able to figure out and start using keyboard
shortcuts such as taking screenshots of my work to upload to my blog.
3. Dafont
Another program that significantly helped with the production of my work was
the website www.DaFont.com. This website is a free online website which
allows you to download legal font for free. It also categorizes each font into
different sections so you can easily find a font style that you like. The website
includes many categories including; Fancy, basic, gothic, and so on. This helped
me massively when deciding on a font to use in my magazine that would not
only look good and professional but also so that it would fit the theme and show
off the genre of my magazine. When you click on a font that you like within the
website it gives you a preview of what the font will look like. It also allows you to
type in a word or phrases to see what that would look like in the font. After this
if you like the font you can download it and it will be saved on your computer
and you are able yo use it in programs such as Photoshop which I did, to use the
font for my mastheads, subheadings, headings and text.
I also used many other websites that I previously had no knowledge about to
help with the progress of my magazine. One main one which I used the most
often was Prezi.
Prezi is an online presentation software website which allows you to present
ideas and other information on a virtual canvas. This helped me a lot in showing
off my ideas, my planning, my research, my analysis and my evaluations through
out the progress of my work.
4. Blogger
One website which I used entirely throughout my work was www.blogger.com. Blogger
is a free tool by google, which enables you to create free blogs. Blogs are short for web
logs, which are a form of online journal. I uses blogger through out the whole
production of my magazine as a way to record and show the progress of my magazine
and tasks along the way from start to finish, including ideas, research, planning,
analysis, production and now evaluation. I had never made a blog before so it was a
little scary using a html based website. But after a few lessons I easily got the hang of it
and started posting posts of my work. Blogger allows you to save drafts or publish
them to your blog, it also lets you edit them after posting them which came in handy if
i had to go back and add some more text to my post. It also let you schedule times for
posts. This made it easy for me to see which tasks I had done and posted on my blog
and which tasks I still had to finish and complete. The use of an online journal to show
my work was much easier than a paper version as it allowed me to take time and care
to do my work and it also kept all my work together so that i wouldn't misplace or lose
any. Blogger is able to be accessed on any computer so i was able to complete work at
home as well. It also help me refer back to previous work which i could easily find
depending on the date in which it was published. In media it is important it is very
important to demonstrate a good knowledge of media forms, which blogger enables
you to do by giving you the option to upload; text, pictures, videos, embedded
creations and also web links. Blogger has offered me a easy and free way to provide
people with my ideas, planning production analysis and evaluation which will hopefully
show them how i was able to create my final magazine product.
