Through creating a music magazine, the author learned new technologies and skills. Photoshop was essential for editing photographs and designing logos. The author also used InDesign to lay out magazine pages, gaining new skills through practice. Survey Monkey helped with audience research, and PowerPoint, Prezi, and YouTube aided presentation of the process. While familiar with some programs, the author developed abilities with InDesign, Photoshop, and Premiere Pro. Overall, various software allowed presentation of work and growth of technical proficiency.

1. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT
TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE
PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING
THIS PRODUCT?

2. Through the process of creating my music magazine I came across different technologies that helped me a lot in
creating my final media product as well as develop my skills and learn new ones. Through part of the stages I used my
current skills and knowledge which I have used previously confidently, however in other stages I learnt new skills
which I needed practice in and developed some. This really helped me improve my abilities.
I going to first start with the strengths as during the production process I have used my own DSLR camera (Canon
D7100 width a 18-105mm lens) for the photographs of my magazine. I have been using my camera for the past 1
year, which means I have a very clear understanding of how a digital camera works and what setting I should use in
order to have a professional image. This is also because I have studied AS photography, which helped me produce a
good photograph. I believe that I have showed the process of how I gained more skills and developed my own within
in photographs as well as planning, this is because I knew hoe to manipulate the images on various programmes
which I will be talking about in more detail in my text slide. Also how to edit the artificial light lamps and how to set
up the camera for different time od shots and choosing the correct background. This is shown through the final
photographs which I believe are very good quality and look sophisticated, qualified and professional. I also
researched into further detail on to the use of lighting shutter speed, camera setting kit and other accessories. To
conclude, the lighting I was provided with and the photographic background allowed me to produce professional
working setting, and will be easy for me to manipulate and cut out the background as it is plain grey. Likewise my
DSLR camera helped me to produce a good quality shots. Through the process of talking my images I mainly focused
on manipulating the shutter speed this is because I wanted a good quality image and I was
able to me to adjust the brightness, I could also di this through
changing the position of the artificial lights also allowed me to adjust
the brightness of the image and how the model would look. Although I
was confident is using the camera and adjusting the lighting set,
however I found it hard to set up the camera manually and the lighting
set. This is because it was difficult to set up the aperture (amount of
light reaching the camera cadre).

3. During the construction I used I few different editing software's which helped me to manipulate
the photographs I took or even to produce graphical content such as logo design. I mainly focused
on Photoshop as my editing software. I did used Pixlr and PhotoScape at the start however they
weren't effective and didn’t really allow me to do what I want freely. Therefore I decided to stick
to Photoshop as I was able to do what I want and manipulate easily., due to the fact the I have
used it before therefore it was a little easy but id d develop some skills. It contained various of
tools, vibrancy and changing the colour, brightness/sharpness. I showed these techniques and
how I used them within my image developments found on my blog. For the creation f my
masthead/logo of my magazine due to the options if offered and it did not look blurry as when I
created a feature in Photoshop and placed it on to InDesign it looked a little blurry due to the high
quality which InDesign can not take. I was also easily able to mix fonts, add images, change
colours, add shades during construction of my logo and other features. In addition, what I found
about Photoshop and InDesign is that it allowed me to download fonts which I could sceptically
choose. In conclusion, all the software's where known to me especially Photoshop , which means
I hade a clear idea and understanding of how to use it. However within InDesign I developed many
skills but did know already due to using it in my preliminary task. For example, adding effects,
changing the height, kerning and much more features like this.

4. Furthermore, in order for me to present my work I used many different soft wares to help me do this and represent
it the most professional way. One of them is PowerPoint which I have used in my other subjects. I was easily able to
present my work through the use of slides and step by step as each slide is after the other showing the order of my
work. I also developed and gained skills while using PowerPoint slides, which I then saved as images same goes for
when I used Microsoft word, but for PowerPoint I was also able to used slide share to help me post them on to my
blog, so it shows it is a presentation. I believe this was effective as I could work on my page layout creatively and
confidently. The slide share programme also allowed people particularly media students to see my work. However
this could be seen as a negative thing as they are able to copy my work, but they can use it as an example. This also
implies to prezi, as it’s a website open to other people. Prezi is another programme which I used to present my
work. This was a good programme to use because it enable me to develop my ideas and gradually make a
conclusion and have final outcome. So for that reason when it came for me needing to do so as for on of my
previous evaluations I used it. It also presents the work in a professional and good looking way. This was easy to
use because I have used it many time before. Another programme I used is OBS which allowed me to record my
screen while creating my CD this was a really easy and good way to present my work and show how I was creating
the CD. I did not develop and use new skills because I used it many time before it was very straight forward. As to
editing the video an making it fast I used adobe premier pro, I never used this programme before therefore at first
it was quite hard to use, but after I got my had around it is was easy. Therefore for this programme I developed
and added new skills. I also used YouTube for tutorials to help use it. Not only that but I also used YouTube to
enable me to download my video on to blogger. I have used YouTube many times before therefore it wasn’t time-
consuming and didn’t use and new skills as I have already used them before. Finally the most obvious use of
technology is the Blogger itself which allowed me to present a continues journey throughout the course.

5. One significant software which I have used a lot is Survey Monkey. This website was very useful to
use as it allowed me to reach a wide range of responds in a short period of time. This program and
other programs like this I could easily improve my time management during research stage. I used
this program for both preliminary task and the final task, in order to help me find out about what
my audience is going to be, what I am going to include within the magazine and many other
instructing feature to help me produce a successful magazine. It also allowed my research to be
more realistic because I gained a lot of responses. This programme also enabled me to learn how
to structure open and closed questions in order to help me gain information. Likewise this
programme provided me with various of options including; multiple choices, drop down answers,
text boxes and much more. This helped me to create my survey very professionally and
sophisticatedly. I was also able to repost the link through social media or email in order to gain
more audience and responses, or even make it opening many anyone can answer it. surely this is a
good website to use when needing to find out information from a wide range of viewers in a short
period of time. One other good feature of this programme is that it automatically analyses and
gathers the data. This was very helpful and saved me a lot of time, as I did not have to create my
own graphs.

6. The main program the I used in order t put everything together and have my final outcome for all the pages is
InDesign. The programme allowed me to construct my front cover, contents page and double page spread for both
magazines.. I mostly developed and gained new skills during the preliminary task, this is because I have never used
this programme before. As a whole, I found this programme very useful through the process of constructing my
magazine as it allowed me to create alignment lines and grids that were very helpful when putting the magazine
pages together especially because of the relation to my layout plans. Even though I did feel more comfortable in
using InDesign during my final task there was some challenging elements. As to overcome these weaknesses I
watched many YouTube tutorials and kept playing around with it which significantly helped me to understand
InDesign tools for example, place format text, add effects and many other small features. Another problem I had
is that I could only access InDesign in school and when I get home I could not use it on my laptop. This because I
did not have it downloaded. So for that reason it effected my time management. Therefore I needed to plan out
my time effectively and carefully in order not to fall behind. As at home I used Photoshop to manipulate my image
and do everything I need on it, because I could access it at home, and when I get to school I use InDesign to finish
of creating everything I need.
Overall, I benefited from all the soft wares listed in my presentation, as they enabled me to gain new skills as well
as develop my old ones. I will be willing to use them later on as they all helped me to present the work in many
different professional and creative ways.