Evaluation Question 6 Draft

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

Camera:

For the photography of my media product I used a Nikon D3200 camera. When using this camera to take images for the draft magazine pages, what I found was that it took some very high quality images and this led me to using this same camera for my final images. This ensured that my pictures on the pages of my magazine looked natural and also to a high professional standard. This will help to gain customers and also to fit into the distribution process of high quality magazines more easily. To take my images I used surround lighting to make sure my artists had plenty of light on them to prevent shadows and to make the artists look much clearer when they could be seen on bigger screens. Finally the background for my images was simply a white back drop and this make it easier to cut out my pictures and put them onto different backgrounds and it also enhanced the colours and look of the artist in the photo.

Photoshop:

I used the Photoshop software on the school computers to create my media magazine/product as I felt it was the best and most suitable software to use. I learnt how to edit and manipulate images to fit my needs and also so that my target audience would like them. An example of an editing technique that I used includes the cutting out some areas of my images using the lasso tool. Something I did with this tool was removing some of the backgrounds of my images. My whole magazine was done using Photoshop CS6 and this includes all the layers on the pages. Before I started to make my magazine, I had little knowledge about the Photoshop software but after completing some practical tasks I can now say I have a better understanding of the software and what to do with it. This is clear when comparing my first design for my cover to my final magazine. The tools I have used have improved and become more advanced.

Online sites and programs: 

For my magazine I also used a variety of different online programs and resources to put together research to make sure my magazine and its production was right for my target audience. To create my overall coursework blog I used blogger and this allowed me to post updates about what I had been researching using and producing all the time. It was almost like a diary of my work, that I could keep looking back on to develop ideas further for my magazine. I also used many websites like Google as a search engine, da font (to download fonts for my pages, and also UK tribes to get research about my social group and target audience.  Following this I used Microsoft Word to write out the text I was to put on my blog, whether its research or general text it made me able to ensure that the spellings were correct and also so I could see the amount of words I was writing.