Learning Photoshop, Camera Skills, and Magazine Design Techniques
1. Q7: Looking back to your preliminary task, what
do you feel that you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
2. Form my preliminary task to my final products I have learnt different techniques such as using
Photoshop to create a look alike of an original magazine. My preliminary task was very basic.
For my student magazine I didn’t have any knowledge of how to edit a photo on Photoshop, so I
used the original photo for my magazine cover. I found it hard to maintain the conventions of a
magazine at the beginning of making my product. My layout on my student magazine was plain
and ordinary. My student magazine sort of conformed to an original magazine as it had a
Masthead, a clear head line and sub headline though it subverted as my sell lines were too long
and couldn’t really be seen properly as they blended in with the background of the photo.
Though my colour scheme was basic but worked well with the text on my magazine, the colours
of the writing matched with what my model was wearing. This was effective as it didn’t make my
magazine look too over the top, This mad it look more eye catching. However my magazine
looked quite spacious, there wasn’t enough information on it and it is unclear what the genre of
this magazine was.
3. However from my student magazine to my music magazine I have progressed in areas that needed
working on. I have learnt how to use a Canon G7 X camera to take high quality photos, I learnt how
to edit my photos on Photoshop and use a wide range of web applications to help produce my
research for my magazine genre.
When using Photoshop to create my final products I used grids to split my magazine into different
sections. This helped me quite a lot and enabled me to create a clean and easy to ready contents
page. For my final front cover I used photoshop to lighten up my image and make it more defined
by using the contrast tool to make the colours in my image stand out more.
The language used on both my student and music magazine has stayed some what the same as I
have used formal language. However on mu student magazine there are some elements of
colloquialism such as the words “spice” “sexy” and “Hot” this again was to make my target
audience feel engaged with what they are reading and make it more relatable to them.
All of these conventions have really helped me create a good music magazine and with the skills I
had adapted I was able to make my magazine look as realistic and original as possible.
4. From my initial sketches of my front cover,
Contents and DPS I realised that during the
process of creating my media products my
ideas changed, though I used my sketches as
guidelines which could lead me to the right
direction of making my final products. This
happened because during the process I
gained more understanding of the software
design and the conventions of an actual
magazine. I now have a better
understanding of the conventions of a
magazine due to the music magazine
analysis of front covers, contents page and
double page spread work I have done. This
gave me knowledge into how music
magazines use different techniques to
capture their audience. I can state that to
some degree my overall progress of my
music magazine has improved quite a lot
from my preliminary task of my Student
magazine. This is due to the fact that I have
learnt a lot about photography and editing
and using my skills to construct my final
products.
