Question Six

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

Since I began creating my magazine, I have reused programmes and software’s that I was familiar with through the course of my Media GCSE, but I also have been introduced to new software and programmes that I can use and that will hopefully help me improve my media product.

When creating my coursework, I have used a variety of the CS6 software’s such as Photoshop, InDesign and Adobe Premier. I was familiar with the use of Photoshop when I took Media at GCSE and I used this software to create my magazine and for editing the photos. However, I am now using InDesign to create my magazine as I feel that this software is a lot easier to use when putting the magazine together. For example when using the text wrap tool on Photoshop, you would have to manually choose the path in which the article text would wrap around. Whereas on InDesign, the task is much shorter and simpler, as all you have to do is place the text in a text box and press the text wrap tool at the top of the page and it will wrap it around any images or objects you wish automatically and if you need to resize the textbox then the text will automatically fill the other spaces below whereas on Photoshop you would have to redraw the path. However I am still using Photoshop to edit the photos which I took against a white background on a booked photoshoot using all of the equipment such as lighting and backdrops at school.

There are many different tools that I could use when creating my magazine on InDesign which I felt made the concept of creating the magazine a lot easier. For example I can create colour swatches so that it is easier to keep the house style of the magazine consistent throughout the whole product. Another extremely useful tool that I used constantly was the Paragraph Styling which is a tool in which you can set in place the font, font size, font colour, and you can also adapt the paragraph ruling which I used to separate the sell lines on the front cover and to highlight the pull quotes on the double page spread. Overall, there are a lot of useful tools that have helped benefit me when creating the product.

I have taken all of the images used in my magazine on a cannon SLR and have used this piece of equipment in previous tasks so was familiar with the settings and the process of using it. I took a variety of portrait and landscape images which I took for the use on my front cover, contents page and both pages of the double page spread. I also used a similar camera when taking pictures in London of the model for my contents page. To help enhance my images, I used various studio lighting which allows me to take high quality images which will be easier to edit and use in my coursework.