The document reflects on what the author has learned from their preliminary task to their full magazine product. They discuss improving skills with Photoshop like using layers and photo editing. They also learned to properly plan photos by considering things like body positioning. The author improved at directing models, choosing appropriate outfits, and using colors and text styles fitting for their target audience. Overall, the author gained valuable experience in planning, design, and using tools like Photoshop to create a polished final product.

1. Looking back to your preliminary task,
what do you feel that you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?

2. Looking Back
This is my preliminary task for school students and the parents of the
students, as you can see it’s not good.
There’s multiple text, different
colours which make it hard to
understand. The photo’s are
badly re-arranged and
widespread all over the page,
which makes the image seem
bigger than it originally is.
My contents page is appalling, no
organisation and it just looks like
someone chucked things
together to make “work.”

3. Photoshop
At the beginning of this project, and whilst doing the preliminary task, I
didn’t use Photoshop. Instead I used Microsoft publisher to quickly put
everything together. So I can’t say a lot on the Photoshop side, but
when I started my first draft I found Photoshop amazingly difficult.
When I wanted to rub out things, it decided to wipe out someone's face
or leg, but from time to time I found out that you can control the rubber
with different settings. Layers were a difficulty to deal with, I kept
making a layer, but it wouldn’t let me change something with my work
and then I realised that it was the wrong layer, also getting them in
order was one of my difficulties.
However throughout this course I have developed a knowledge of
Photoshop which allowed me to make my magazine pages better than
what I previously started with.

4. Images
The one thing I found most difficult when dealing with images is when I
was taking the photos and didn’t consider peoples posture, body
movement, camera “shake” and disappearing limbs. Which is not a
good thing when editing a photo, and then realising that you can’t make
it do what you intended to do because of missing body parts like an
arm or a leg. Since I didn’t take all of that into consideration at the
beginning. So half way through on making my magazine, I had to re-
take my photo’s, which set me back a weeks worth of editing.
When re-taking my photo’s, I used a guide which told me the camera shots
and camera angles, so that helped me make my photo’s better than
before.
So I have learnt whilst taking photo’s, I have to consider whether or not
there whole body is in the shot, so when editing I won’t have any
complications. And I have also considered the lighting and my
backgrounds, and if they work with what I am trying to produce.

5. Models
On my preliminary task I only told people to look like they are working or
purposely looking into the camera, but when doing the music
magazine, I told my models to look directly into the camera, I made
positioned them into the correct pose and I was in control throughout
the whole “photo-shoot”, however they did help a little bit by giving me
ideas.
When taking the first pictures, I didn’t consider the outfits that they were
wearing. In my preliminary task, I didn’t have to worry about them
looking “smart” because they already wear suits to school and since it
was a school magazine, I used the school environment. However, with
my music magazine, I told them what to wear so they can appeal to my
target audience. For example, since my magazine was a rock-indie
genre, I told the boys to wear black leather jackets and my girl with a
smart-casual blazer and a blue baseball (indie) jacket.

6. Text
I used a basic text with my preliminary task, it was a simple “Times New
Roman” with different colours and my title “The College Way” was
done with word art. My magazine used three main texts, one was bold
full of bright colours so it would be eye catching and easy to read for
my audience and the others were basic and simple so it’s easy to
understand.
The colours I used for my text on my first task were bright colours to make
it eye-catching, but they didn’t appeal to the target audience at all,
another thing I didn’t consider. However I took this into consideration
when doing my magazine. Instead of a bright yellow, I used colours that
went with my target audience and my colour scheme, like white, black
and red, which followed a pattern with the boxes I added on the front
page. My contents and double page, I used a greyish black, which made
it seem elegant and different.

7. Colour
I had to do a colour grid, which collaborated colours together so I can
connect them with a meaning. At first I had no idea on what colours to
use, so when doing my questionnaire, I asked my target audience on
what colours they liked and what would work. I have learnt to use
basic colours to keep it simple, but I liked to twist them to work with
other colours so it isn’t just a plain sequence.
My magazine used three basic colours, and they are: Red, Black and White.
They are all basic and bright colours which stand out and I made them
work with my target audience and the magazine genre.
I think my colours show my target audience to be sophisticated, but with
the help of the bold colours, it shows them to be loud, full of energy and
at the same time they are shown to be mature.

8. Overall
Overall, I have learnt to take the little things into consideration mainly so I
don’t mess up like I did at the start. At the beginning I had little skills
for Photoshop, and now I know how to edit photo’s, make layers and
backdrops and many more. When picking a target audience, I have
learnt to keep it simple, my magazine is aimed at unisex teenagers from
the ages of 13-17, when at the beginning I wanted it to be for ages of
16-24, but that changed when I realised that what I was making didn’t
suit that age range.
I have also learnt to make:
- Questionnaires
- A proper blog
- Prezi (presentation device)
And many more, during this process.