Friday, 6 May 2016
Evaluation: Technologies Used
I have used photoshop within the creation of my product, and it has been the main focus of the production - most of my product has been created with photoshop. I have learnt to edit photos within photoshop so that they look better suited to a magazine. The margins I was able to create within photoshop enabled me to create a better-looking, more in-line magazine, particularly with my double page spread and when it came to making sure the words on the front cover did not run into the photo. Photoshop was a very user-friendly technology once I had grown accustomed to it and had experimented, as I was able to very easily because of Photoshop, with what I wanted my product to look like.
InDesign is another product, similar to Photoshop, used by many professional companies in the creation of their media product. I used InDesign on my double page spread, as it was easier to add conventions
SurveyMonkey was used in the research stages of the product - I used it to explore what my target audience wanted; even who my target audience were in the first place. It was very useful when it came to inspiration, and whenever I was stuck with what to do at a certain point, I could turn back to the results to get a feel of what my audience would want and expect.
Flipsnack was a wonderful product to use if I needed to move a word document file onto the blog but didn’t want or need to paste it all as text, which would have ruined the formatting. I could convert these files into PDF files to upload them to Blogger, which created an interactive flipbook online. Another online product that I used to look over results from research and evaluations was slideshare, an online slideshow product that I could upload to Blogger easily.
I’ve used the product Prezi to create interactive powerpoints that have helped me gather information from my research, and also to evaluate my products in a different, more interesting format, in which it is easy to incorporate images into these evaluations and research gatherings.
Thursday, 5 May 2016
Skills Development
I believe I have improved a lot during my time creating these products. I have learnt a lot in photoshop. As you can see, in the first product, the image was stretched far too much, probably due to trying to cut the image without knowing how to keep in proportion.
I used fonts from the website 'DaFont', which I feel, on the one hand, were good fonts, but on the other hand, could have been chosen more appropriately, which I worked on improving throughout the task (as is visible, I changed the font a few times to see which one word best). And the white areas around the images could have been cleared more accurately. I did not have this issue by the end of the finished product.
Another small thing I have worked on was the fact that text was over the face of the subject. This was difficult to avoid during the production of the final product with the close up on the subject's face taking up most of the space, but I am satisfied that I avoided this to the best of my ability.
At the midway point at which I had completed my draft product, my photoshop skills were impressive for the time I had to learn it in, but the colours and fonts were far too busy, so I went back and improved on this, which ended up changing the whole of the magazine cover. I am satisfied with the end result.
In photoshop, I have learnt to hold down shift to retain the original measurements of the image and avoid stretching the image to look unnatural. I have learnt about drop shadows, of which I have used with effect on my titles.
I have learnt how to use images effectively within photoshop and how to use rulers to keep everything in line and to look far neater.
I have learnt how to edit and airbrush an image slightly to make it look professional, attractive. I have also learnt to sharpen or blend an image so that, even if the quality of the image is not perfect, I can bring it up to the standard required. This has been a very useful tool for me, especially during the production of the image-heavy double-page spread.
The colourwork and fonts are something I had to experiment a bit with until I was satisfied enough with the quality. I feel I have made competent progress with my photoshop skills.
Overall, I am pleased that I have improved and created an end result far better than the previous preliminary task.
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