What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?

1. What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of
constructing this product

2. photography
When taking images for my magazine I used a canon 500D DSLR camera, I had very little
experience with a camera like this before so I had to find tutorials and articles on what
each switch does and how to use it effectively to get the best results from a picture, I
found it difficult at first to use the camera as I had to come to terms with the camera
terminology and how to get a decent image. Because the camera was digital I was able to
see the image I had just taken so I can see what was right or wrong with the image I had
just taken and how I would be able to change it, whether it is through lighting or there is
something for example shutter speed I had to change. I also had a friend that was familiar
with the camera explain to me what each button done and gave be some advice on how to
take an effective picture which is something that I found very useful. Another problem I
had with the camera is the images were often blurring at first, I was able to quickly realise I
would need to use a tripod so that my hands shaking wouldn't effect the camera, this
allowed me to reach more angles, and heights that I wouldn't have been able to reach on
my own.

3. lighting
The lighting was relatively easy to use, it was mainly about getting the perfect
position where not to much of the light boxes where in the camera shot and
how to get the perfect angle on the picture. I found images and tutorials
online on how to get certain effects from the lighting. It took a few go’s to get
used to using lighting but because I was using a digital camera it allowed me
to look back and check how the lighting had effected the rest of the image. In
the case of the lighting it was pretty basic to use it just was the case of
practicing with it.

4. Abobe Photoshop
I used Photoshop Cs3 in the construction on my final magazine, I have only had a little bit
of experience with Photoshop such as adjusting the colour, so I needed to use tutorials to
gain more knowledge and a better understanding of Photoshop for what I wanted to do
with my final production. I had firstly done some research into the basics of Photoshop
and what some of the buttons do I then wanted to specifics in what I exactly want to do,
so I had done some research through YouTube and found some tutorials in editing images
and adding dotted lines ect. One specific example of this was I wanted to find how to cut
out images from their backgrounds, which I used a magic wand tool they showed me and
I used a rubber to delete the background being very careful not to rub out any of the
image.

5. Slide share/Microsoft PowerPoint
I used Microsoft PowerPoint in my process of planning and research for my
magazine, I used it to find the codes and conventions of other magazines.
The reason that I had used PowerPoint is I found it displayed my
information clearly and I found it a very straightforward and helpful. It
made it easy for me to refer back to at later dates and it allowed for me to
easily move from slide to slide quickly and I could decide if I wanted
transactions from each slide or not. From Microsoft PowerPoint I was able
to upload my presentations onto slide share to be shown publically and this
allowed me to embed this information onto my blog for it to be part of my
research.

6. Internet
Facebook/Google/YouTube/Blogger
I used the internet for examples, communication, publishing and also tutorials. Firstly
Facebook was used to communicate with my focus group, I had done this by creating a
page called focus group, then added people from the age group and gender that my target
audience was in, this is so that I am able to find out what they like and would reflect what
my target audience would like. I sent them messages with queries into what to do with my
magazine and what choices and decision to make.
Google I used to research different magazine styles and information about the magazines,
this helped me gain an understanding of how magazines attract an audience and what
genre of music I was going to focus on and my audience and what I can use and what I will
go against and why will I want to do this. I was also able to find light angles to create certain
looks with my models which was very helpful when trying to gain certain effects.
I used YouTube to get tutorials to help me embed video’s onto slide share and then to
blogger. It also helped me to find tutorials for Photoshop and how I was able to use the
camera effectively, it also helped me to improve my blogger and showed my how to create
labels to make my blogger easier to navigate.
Blogger was used to show my research, planning and my construction.