Evaluation Question 6

Question:

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

At the very beginning of the task I instantly came to grips with blogger. I learnt how to navigate myself round it by exploring the website and other people's own blog as well. After familiarizing myself with the network, I began to add gadgets of my own after I had setting up my own account such as necessary tools like 'labels' to make my blog easy to organize and clear for people to navigate themselves round finding needed information.

Blogger has enabled me to modify my work and easily organise it. As it is very visual, I was able to re-draft my work easily keeping it all together unlike if I were to organise all my work in a folder where it would be much harder.

During the preliminary and music magazine task I learnt how to use technologies such as
cameras in an effective and professional way as seen in real magazines. I decided to use a digital Samsung P800 to take photos, capturing a sense of emotion in the image. Therefore, I learnt how to use a variety of effects to convey what I wanted in the image.

These were:

• Face Detection
• Digital Image Stabilization
• Colour and Saturation Effects

I was happy with the shots I had taken because they appeared

to be very clear and sharp around the edges. The emotion of the face also came out well in which the the true facial expression was emphasised and made to be very clear. This was due to using face detection effectively as well as focusing the image stabilizing it to appear as sharp as possible. Furthermore, I was happy with the colour editing as it showed a nice contrast of colours, This technique I learnt was used productively.

As well as my using my windows Sony computer at home, I learnt how to use the Apple macs at school. These consisted of a completely different software which I came to terms with progressively. Although slightly confused at the start due to the different layout and contrasting software, the Apple mac grew on me in which I am more than happy to use them now for future reference. I learnt a variety of skills to use the new computer to complete my tasks adequately.

Within the next stage of the course I learnt how to use Adobe photoshop CS4. When completing the preliminary task I was able to explore the wide variety of tools photoshop contains, in which the main ones I learnt to use effectively where a small amount such as the spot healing tool. However, when completing the music magazine I had learnt and accomplished a great deal with this type of technology. I learnt how to use all the tools editing my images so they can be of the best standard possible. I changed the contrast, brightness, took specific things out and put specific things in. I also came to grasp with the layer technique to put an entire production together making it seem most attractive and appealing to my target audience. I was also able to learn new techniques such as how to insert fonts into the photoshop content. As demonstrated here, you can see the difference between the two images before and after being manipulated in photoshop.

I downloaded desirable fonts and was able to insert them into photoshop so that they could be used. Without photoshop I would of been unable to produce my front cover and contents page to the standard it is at now. Therefore, I progressively became familiar with all the tools and used most of them ranging from cutting out figures from the background to inserting all my different components together such as text, text boxes, edited photos and many more.

Coincidently, I manipulated all the single components I wanted such as the model and text individually in different files, then put them together also in photoshop using many different layers so that certain things were able to be positioned in the correct place either being on top or below other components.

To produce my double page spread, I used Adobe Indesign CS4 which was also a completely new programme to me. It varies a lot to photoshop for example, it does not include layers. However, it was a suitable programme to produce my double page spread on because there were many functions you could doon there and not on photoshop.

I learnt the new skills for this type of technology and was able to produce my double page spread effectively.

In addition, by using the knowledge I had learnt when completing tasks on photoshop, I was able to adapt to the differences and function the programme to a good standard. Unlike photoshop, I was able to use a drops cap for my double page spread and also use text boxes with larger amount of text than one would use in phototshop. Furthermore, I learnt other skills such as text wrap, which allows the text to fill around the images presented to make my double page spread more presentable and appear like in a real music magazine.