Evaluation Questions 6-7

6.   

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

Having used programmes such as Adobe Photo shop, Picasa, Adobe Premiere and Microsoft Publisher I have learnt how to lay out my products and ‘put them to bed’. I have also learnt which programmes can do different things to a picture of background and even writing. I found that by using different effects and fonts I was able to break up the writing  and by using effects on images I was able to learn and understand what effects are useful and help to enhance the quality of the picture.

I have also learnt how to use a number of different tools within the programmes I used, especially adobe Photoshop.

I used the Lasso tool and the magic wand tool a lot throughout my product as I felt it was a quicker way to remove the green screen as opposed to using Adobe Premiere Element’s green screen tool. With these two tools I was able to cut around the picture leaving a crisp line; however I did find this difficult when trying to cut around the hair of my models.

-  The magic wand tool was useful for crisp lines as it would cut out large parts quickly.

- The lasso tool however was useful when zooming in to do small particular parts of an image

To take my pictures I used a Cannon digital camera, I also used green screen technology which I found was useful and learnt how to edit in different background, which is the initial idea of green screen. As you can see from a number of my pictures, rather than using background settings, I used colours to simply make the models stand out from the page.

Another form of technology I learnt to use was blogging, as you will see from my blog- www.laurawoodmedia.blogspot.com, I learnt how to update it as and when I felt necessary, with the relevant information. I also had to use programmes such as paint when updating my blog, as I found that I was unable to upload documents, therefore I had to print screen it and copy onto paint where I then turned it into a .jpeg document which blogger then allowed me to upload to my blog so I was able to discuss what I had done to create this document and what I would later change.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS9b6H_Vh8w

This video was useful for me during the production of my magazine as it helped me to learn how to remove the green screen in my case.

I also learnt how to use a number of websites to extract relevant information and pictures, I also managed to find other examples of blogs and magazines which gave me more ideas of how to create my own.

7.    Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

At first when I created my front page and contents page I was initially happy with it, I felt that the pictures and colours were appropriate and that it all looked very attractive, however having shown it to a focus group I found that a number of points were highlighted:

Picture quality was poor and looked inappropriate, and slightly out of place.

The layout of the front cover was also poor and made it feel very cramped, there was not enough space to put cover lines and any extra information

A few people pointed out that they did not like the fact that they could not see the magazine’s name.

Some people did not like the colour scheme and felt it was too boring. Therefore I felt that I needed to change the front cover and contents page to become more readable and more attractive as well as looking much more professional. Therefore I decided to change everything, including the picture, colour scheme and layout- the three main points that I felt were raised. So i took another picture and looked at other magazines and eventually created my front cover. I felt that it looked much more thought about and I also felt that I had spent more time considering the construction of the layout to make it more readable.

I feel that I have learnt a number of things since my preliminary task:

Picture editing- I feel that I have learnt how to experiment; having used a number of programmes I have learnt how to change lighting and colours. However I have also learnt how to cut out and crop parts of images I do not want. Having taken nearly all of my pictures against a green screen I was also able to learn how to remove the green screen and put in the desired background.

Layout- how different items will fit in on the page without making it seems busy and overcrowded. My preliminary task was useful for this as it helped me to practice how a magazine should be laid out and also how to lay it out without it looking unattractive and not being effective when reaching for my target audience.

General editing-  have found that using the same colours, fonts and styles do not complement each other well, readers want to see a bit of variety so that it does not look boring. This is why throughout my magazine I have tried to use different fonts and different sizes. I have also used italics and bold throughout for example where I name a number of music artists, I felt that colours, size and style helped to break it up so that it did not just look like a list of names.