The document discusses the various pieces of technology and software used to create a magazine. This includes using IMacs at school, a Sony laptop at home, Lumix and Nikon cameras to take photos, 1001 Fonts to choose fonts, Pages and IPhoto on Macs for layout and editing, Serif Draw Plus and Picnik for photo editing, Microsoft Publisher and Blogger for layout and blogging, and Google for research. Setting up lighting for photos on the school stage was also discussed.

1. Technology
Throughout the creation of my magazine I have
been using several pieces of technology to help
me achieve my end product. In the next slides
you will see all the different products and
software I have used during this process.

2. I have used the Apple Macs during this
IMacs
process as these are the computers we
use during lessons. However as we
only have nine we have to take turns
and share as there are more than nine
students – this is a bit of a pain! At
first I found these very confusing to
use as they are not something I
normally use, however I just kept
experimenting with them and I now
have the just on how they work. The
macs come in very useful as they have
different software to Microsoft
meaning you end up with a different
layout than if you use Microsoft’s. In
the next few slides I will tell you about
the software I use when I am working
on the mac.

3. Sony Laptop
When I’m at home, I use this laptop to
edit pictures for my blog, add or
change posts and do other research for
my magazine. I find this much easier to
handle and use compared to Macs as
well as it being much easier to work
on. Seeing as I’m so used to using this
laptop I get the work done quicker. The
only disadvantage of using this laptop
is that the screen is much smaller and
it doesn’t have the same software as
the mac meaning I either have to
produce work on this or on the mac
considering the files are different and
don’t open.

4. Lumix camera
For the preliminary task I used my
own camera to take pictures of the
model. This was good as I knew
exactly how the camera works and it
is also a good 14 megapixel camera
and allows you to change the
contrast and brightness or the
camera to suit the time of day.
When I took the recce photos, I used
the schools own camera (not the
professional one) however it ran out
of batteries and the screen didn’t
work; this resulted me to just taking
pictures on my phone to save time.

5. When taking the photos for the
magazine cover, contents and
double page spread, I used the art
Nikon
camer
department’s camera. I’m unsure of
the specific name and model
however it looked exactly the same
as the image next to this text! I
found that this camera was brilliant
to work with and produced
a
excellent quality images. Of course
this also took a little bit of time to
get used to.

6. 1001 fonts
When it came to choosing the font
for my text it took ages because I
am really fussy and want to get the
right font to match with the genre
of my magazine – pop! I came
across this site from word of mouth
and it supplied me with a wide
range of fonts to choose from. All
you had to do was download them
onto the computer – it’s as easy as
that! I think the majority of the
fonts on this website are much
better than the ones that the
computer software supplies.

7. Pages / Iphoto
Both of these software’s are supplied by
the macs. Pages is similar to Microsoft
Word in the sense that you can design
posters/banners etc on it. I found this
easy to use once I played around with it
however still don’t understand how you
do some things on it. I think for
creating my magazine documents
Microsoft Publisher would be best!
Iphoto is the photo editor which is one
the mac. It is very similar to others in
the sense that you can change the
contrast and colours on a picture
however it takes a lot of getting used
to.

8. Serif Draw Plus
After looking at several photo editor
sites, such as Photoshop, Iphoto, and
Picnik I finally came across this to help
me get a white background! This is the
software I used when I edited the
background from my front cover
image. Seeing as I have only used this
once before I wasn’t sure on how to
work it - therefore had to ask for help!
Once I knew how to work it I
experimented cutting the image out
from the background. The images are
still a bit edgy and need tiding up for
my final cover – I will have to practise
a bit more!

9. Desktop Publisher
I found that creating my front
cover was so much easier on a
normal publishing site such as
Microsoft Office Publisher. I felt
these were easier to use as I have
grown up using it so I have a lot of
knowledge on how to use it and I
found that it was easier to move
text and pictures around on it so
that they weren’t disappearing once
you overlapped it with something
else.

10. For our task we were asked to blog
Blogger
and post all of our work onto this
website. I find this blogging site
very easy to use and now that I
have been using it for a while I can
navigate myself round it easily,
however at first I found myself
having difficulty on how to get onto
my posts and even how to create a
post! As well as this you can
change the background, fonts, text,
and colours to match your style and
to make it more exciting.

11. As we had to take photos for our
magazine I thought it would be a good
Picnik
idea to edit them. I have been using
Picnik as my main photo editor seeing
as it has several features which can
change the way a photo looks. The
website it great for making photos look
professional as you can change the
contrast, saturation,
brightness/lighting and also has
features such as teeth whitening and
airbrushing! I found this website very
easy to use and had no troubles using
it. The only problem is that it will be
closing on 19th April 2012 so after that
date it will no longer be around.

12. Slideshare
Throughout my blog I have been
using a website called Slideshare
which presents your work in an
easy to read presentation. This
just combines the work you’ve
done together in a slideshow so
it’s all in one place. The
equivalent to this is ‘Keynote’ but
you can only access that on the
macs. The only problem I had
with this what not knowing how
to upload a ‘slideshare’ onto my
blog. In the end I had to Google
the answer as the website did
not display how to do it.

13. Google
Throughout the process I will be using
Google a lot. This is my main search
engine as I feel that it is quick and
efficient and supplies me with the best
information for what I am looking for.
I will be using Google to be getting on
to my blog as well as for finding
pictures, artists, examples of
magazines and for independent
research.

14. Lighting
When it came to taking the pictures
for the magazine, I chose to place
my model on the stage in the place.
I chose to do it in this place because
it has a white backdrop at the back
and has several lights surrounding it.
The main colour lighting is obviously
clear, and then blue, red and green.
The only skills we had to learn were
which switches to turn on for certain
lights and how to turn the whole lot
on and off. A problem that occurred
during this was that the lighting was
not shining on the area in which I
wanted the model to stand.