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College Magazine

Evaluation Question 2
College Magazine Evaluation 2
What have you learnt about the technologies from the process
of constructing this product?
The first process in which I went through to create this product is by taking location pictures
throughout college with my Motorola G Mobile phone. I used the phone for this task as I use it on
a daily basis and I am familiar with the functions it uses, furthermore the camera on this particular
phone model is good quality to take these sort of casual pictures. By taking these pictures it meant
I had a clear idea on which backdrops I could use for my main image. To take the pictures I used
the camera function on the phone, which allowed me to take quick images of places of interest.
With the phone we took several images which allowed us to review and filter out and images
which didnt suit the direction or genre of the magazine. The gallery function on the phone allowed
me to make several changes to the images, for example cropping. I learnt how to do the cropping
by experimenting with the edit function on the sub-gallery menu . This almost acted as a draft so I
had a good idea in my mind of how I was going to use the images and what I needed to do to
them so they suited the magazine. After this was done I could transfer these images from the
phone to the main computer via USB port. By doing this it allowed me to use the images for a
verity of different functions- e.g. to upload them to my reflective blog or upload them to the
magazine its self.
The blog I have been keeping on (Blogger.com) allowed me to publish my work continuously
throughout the many processes to create the magazine. To understand the technology I first I
experimented by first uploading a profile of myself and picture to go with it. As it was similar
technology to yahoo email, which I use on a daily basis it was easy to pick up. This technology
was useful to this task as the shared blog allowed people to share ideas on their own individual
magazines which helped us better our own magazines from the inspiration of others.
Whilst blogging our regular updates on blogger.com we then went out and took our
proper photos for the magazines using models as well as our original locations used
to create our location reccee. To do this we used a Lumix camera to take these
images. I learned how to use this camera by taking some mock pictures to
understand how the focus of the lens worked and also the display options so I could
see the taken image in much more clarity. The reason I used this particular model of
camera as it is a generally good picture quality but also the screen display on the
front of the camera allows me to see the image I'm taking on a screen, which gives
me a better view on the position of the image. With this advantage I am able to see
how the main image will look as it is on the magazine cover. This is advantageous
as I am able to adjust the position of the picture to fit the cover.
As with the location recce pictures on my phone I was able to connect the camera to
the PC and transfer the images to the hard drive. By doing this it allowed me to
access the images for the construction element of the easily by just inserting them.
Before construction began I had to create a plan on paper. This involved sketching
the plan for the cover and contents, but I wanted it published on my Blogger.com
account as this would allow me to group all of my work together and make my
comparison of the plan and finished product quicker. To do this is had to use a HP
Scanjet G2410 scanner. The use of this was very easy as it was pre synced with a
computer. I learnt how to use this by listening to instructions from my peer and also
trial and error of using it. To use it I had to put my work within the tray and allow the
scanner to scan my work then it automatically allowed me to save it to my personal
area on my computer as an image/ JPEG. This then allowed me to use the picture
of my scanned work on any documents or work on my blog. By doing this process I
was able to learn very easily on how to use this piece of hardware and how to turn a
document on plain paper into a JPEG on my computer.
Once I had taken and downloaded the pictures onto my computer, I was then able to start
the construction of my magazine. As was guides by my teacher, I decided to use Adobe
Photoshop to produce the final product. First I had to make the page an A4 International
news paper size so it would fit with convention of every other magazine. To start I had to
insert the main image into the document as it would act as my background for the
magazine. To do this it just required a simple place function in the file menu in the top
left corner. I knew how to do this already as its similar to the Insert function on Microsoft
Office. By doing this I managed to learn one of the most important skills for Photoshop,
and I was able to learn this through teacher instruction and also experimenting with this
software.
When adding the masthead to the magazine, to make it stand out I used the website
Dafont.com. This website allows me to put in my own text (.e.g. SF) and then apply it to a
variety of fonts. By doing this I had to make a choice about which font I would use. To do
this I had to take into consideration what font suits the target audience, genre, colour
scheme and main image. This is because if the masthead didnt suit any of those factors
then the magazine would look unprofessional and would not attract. Considering the
target audience I chose to use a modern font which Is bold and stands out well for the
reader. Using Dafont.com I was unable to change the colouring of the text as it gave me
the new text in a black colour, which meant I was unable to edit it beyond what the
content of the text was. I was unable to copy and paste the new text straight from Dafont
straight to my Photoshop documents, but I was able to print screen my new text, then
copy and paste the print screen to word. From here I was able to crop the image down so
there was only the text and white space left. After this process I was able to copy and
paste the text from word to my documents on Photoshop. By doing this I learnt the
process of making texts on Dafont and using them by transferring to Photoshop.
After the masthead was pasted into Photoshop. I had to remove the white space
from the image so it blended in with the main image. To do this I used the magic
wand tool within Photoshop. I learnt to do this through Adobe fireworks when I
used it at school, and I also experimented with the tool to become more
acquainted with it again. I also used similar tools such as lasso to crop
backgrounds out of images.
As the masthead which was made on Dafont, I needed to change the colour of it
so it would fit in with my college colours colour scheme. For this I had to learn how
to manipulate an image to suit my needs. To do this I had to edit my masthead as
an image, I did this by using the adjustment menu on the image bar, this allowed
me to adjust the saturation and colour of the image. I learnt how to do this by
teacher instruction did quite a bit of adjusting to make the images look good with
the other images and also the colour scheme. Through doing this I learnt how to
manipulate an image in Photoshop to suit shapes or colours of my documents
furthermore how to manipulate them effectively and easily which will help me in
future tasks like this. I learnt this with detailed instruction from teachers and peers
on what to do.

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