The student learned many new skills in creating their full music magazine that were not required for the preliminary task. These included image manipulation using Photoshop and Picnik to professionally edit photos, improving photography skills like composition and lighting, and learning to layout pages using Photoshop instead of Publisher. Creating the magazine took significantly more time, effort, research and planning compared to the preliminary task.

1. Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? I have learnt a great deal since completing the preliminary task. As the preliminary task didn't need much care at all. In the preliminary task I took a few pictures, put them on a page and added some text. This obviously doesn’t take any effort, care, thought or skills. Whereas my final magazine needed all of those things. Image manipulation needed to take place to ensure my images looked professional, light/dark enough and also to add effects. I have shown the images I manipulated on my blog and the before editing and after editing shots. I learnt to manipulate images on Adobe Photoshop and Picnik. Photoshop was very useful for cutting out images, adding backgrounds, white or coloured and removing red eye. I learnt how to do all of the editing on Photoshop which just wasn’t needed in my preliminary task. When working with Picnik, a photo editing website I used the colour editing mostly. I was able to change the hue and saturation of images really easily on the website and also add effects on the images. I really used the effects to their full advantage and it made my images look ten times better than they did before editing. However none of this was needed in the preliminary task so these skills were learnt when needing to edit my music magazines photos. My photography skills improved greatly from when I started my preliminary task to when I finished my music magazine. I learnt how to structure a shot, what shots were needed to give the image a certain look, for example a close up, mid shot. I also learnt how to use positioning and variation of images. All of these skills helped me throughout the making of my magazine and made my magazine what it is. When taking the images for my preliminary task I didn’t really think of the angles, distance or lighting. Which is why I feel I have grown and developed my skills. When creating my preliminary task I used Microsoft Publisher to put it together whereas when creating my music magazine I used Adobe Photoshop. Both programmes are hugely different and I had to learn how to get the desired effect in Photoshop and not in Publisher. This was hard at first learning how to cut and layer things but once I got the hang it was a basic skill I used throughout my magazine. Many mock ups had to be done to create my music magazine which took time, effort, research and organisation. Whereas the preliminary task didn’t take any of this, therefore I learnt how to organise my planning times efficiently, how to complete drafts and layout my pages correctly.