1. This is how I used Adobe Photoshop
CS4 to construct and plan my Media
product.

2. Overview
 I used Photoshop CS4 primarily to edit images
throughout the creation and planning of my
ancillary products. My ancillary magazine front
cover was made in Photoshop completely, parts
of my planning processes also required the use
of Photoshop such as my front cover flat-plan.

3. Page size
 The first step of editing an image was selecting
the page size, which would be A4. This step
was completed by selecting file, new and then
selecting the A4 page size.

4. Inserting an image
 To insert an image I simply dragged and dropped the Jpeg
file to the Photoshop document.

5. Backgroun
d
To remove the background of images I used the
magic eraser tool and the eraser tool.
These tools erased the image’s background. The magic eraser tool deleted
large sections of the background. The eraser tool deleted smaller sections of
the background. To make the eraser tool’s brush smaller I selected the icon on
the toolbar. This enabled me to erase smaller parts of the background.

6. Smoothing
 Certain parts of the image had sharp edges, particularly
the hair in the image. I used the Polygon lasso tool to
select the parts of the hair that I wanted to keep,
followed by right clicking this selected section and
clicking refine edge, which smoothed out the hair.

7. Feature enhancing
 To enhance certain facial features such as eyes and teeth I
used the burn tool and the dodge tool. Both of these
enabled me to lighten or darken certain features of the
image.

8. Spot healing
 To rid the image of blemishes and uneven
skin tone I used the spot healing tool.

9. Inserting a background
 To create a background I selected Layer, New and
named the layer ‘Background’. I then selected layer,
new fill layer, gradient. This allowed me to add a
gradient to my background and also select the
colour(s) I wanted it to be, I could also modify the
angle and style of the the gradient. Finally I a placed
the background layer last on the layers palette,
meaning all other content would appear in front of it.

10. Inserting text
 To insert text I simply selected the ‘T’ icon, followed by horizontal type tool.
After doing this a layer dedicated to the text would be created
automatically. After creating a ‘text box’ I could use the toolbar at the top of
the page to change font style, colour, size and alignment. Text could also
be rotated by clicking and holding the curved arrow in the corner of a text
box, then dragging the mouse in the direction the text box should be
rotated

11. Layer order
 To change the order that the layers appeared on the document I
simply dragged and dropped them to different positions on the
layers palette. This was a particularly vital technique as I wished
my star image to superimpose my masthead.

12. Layer movement
 To move a layer I selected it on the layer palette and then
selected the Move tool. The layer could then be selected on
the page and by clicking and holding it I could move it
around and place it where I desired.

13. Inverting images
 To invert an image I selected the image in the layers palette and pressed Ctrl & I
on the keyboard. I wanted to invert text and so I first turned the text into an image
by right clicking it in the layers palette and rasterizing it. To make the inversion
black and white I then selected Image, adjustments, desaturate.

14. ‘Blacking out’ images
 I needed to use an outline of my front cover star in order to make
my flat-plan. I wished to make the image pitch black in order to
display it on my flat-plan. To do this I selected image, adjustments,
levels and then changed both output levels to ‘0’