2. Within creating this product, I have gained a
variety of skills across various mediums of
technology.These include; Photoshop, Quark
Xpress and improved knowledge of using DLSR
Cameras.
3. Previous to this assignment, I had not used Photoshop. However I had used other
photo editing software therefore some tools I was already familiar with and
picking up the tools I needed to use did not seem too difficult.The tools I learned
about include:
The quick selection seemed to be a great help when beginning this
work. However, when I began using it a lot for cutting out photos
neatly for example, it struggled to define certain colours or fine
areas of the photo may be cut off. For example, the hair was
sometimes cut short.
The line tool came in very handy when I was doing such things as designing and
creating the sections for the background of my DPS or temporarily deciding where
things would be positioned on my Front cover or contents page.
I frequently used this marker tool. It was extremely useful when I
was cutting out images because it allowed me to zoom in on the
image and draw the line precisely. I used this tool for most of the
images I cut out. It also helped me to select sections of an image to
adjust the levels of the section separate to the rest of the image.
The spot was a useful tool I learned about because it aided in
the clearing of any skin imperfections with the people I was
photographing. When it came to my final magazine, the tool
was not needed as much I thoughtit would because my
model had very clear skin to begin with.
4. When creating my product, I learnt how to edit a photo at a
basic level. When taking some of my photos, I found the
light was off and the model in the photo turned out with a
yellow tint. To fix this, I went into the colour balance and
saw the yellow/blue fader. I turned up the amount of blue
and found that when I had done that the colour of the
image had been corrected.
I used these hue/saturation settings mainly on my cover
image for my magazine front cover. This is because I cut
out each section of the image and edited the levels
separately to make the sections stand out like I wanted
them to.
I frequently used the brightness and contrast level tool. It
came into use when I edited any of my images, helping
me to make any images I took look more professional
while remaining natural.
5. I frequently used the character panel within my
work. It accounted for any fonts that I
downloaded and allowed me to alter all of my
text issues in one window.
I had never used this setting before but I found it
came to be very useful in the end. It allowed me
to easily change the distance between two lines
of text. Before I found aboutthis tool, I put lines
of text in different text boxes in order to change
the distance of the lines of text.
This tool was to vary the spacing between
words or letters. This came in handy when
designing how my front cover would look. This
is because it enabled me to move my text
around all within one text box.
6. When using Quark, this tool was by far the most used. It is the tool to move any object or layer you have on your page around.
Quark made it very easy to use and it was useful multiple times for obvious reasons.
This tool was for creating text and text boxes within Quark. This tool allowed you to type in any specialized text box, however,
when creating a text box with this tool, they could only be rectangular.
This tool was used to created boxes for any images you imported into quark. I used this tool a lot because it allowed me the create the
perfect size box to fit a template of the page I was creating. When the box is made, the image you import will not exceed the
perimeter of the box keeping the page organized.
I think this tool was the most useful feature of Quark. It allowed you to create custom sized boxes. To use this tool you just click to create
the box size you like and just make sure that the ends meet and the box will be created. The most useful part of this tool was that after
the box had been created, you could right click on the box and select the content of the box. Therefore, you could create custom text
boxes or image boxes. I found this incredibly useful because it allowed me to create boxes to fit exactly the sizes I needed to fit my page.
7. Before this piece of coursework, I had very limited use of
DSLR cameras. When carrying out this work I was presented
with the time and freedom to experiment with the different
settings of the camera. For example, when taking the image
for my double page spread article, I began by using
automatic settings and I found that the images were not
bright enough. I knew I could edit this in Photoshop,
however I felt that the natural brightness would be more
effective. I researched the camera and how to increase the
exposure. I then came back to the photo shoot and selected
manual settings. I manually increased the exposure and
found that the pictures were a lot brighter and how I
intended them to be.
