Evaluation Question Six

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

Looking back on the start of the year, my knowledge with important technologies to produce my magazine was very limited. I knew how to use my DSLR properly though to take decent images for my magazine, using my Nikon D3000, with 10 megapixels (which may not seem like loads these days but the quality was at a high standard for my product). Another aspect which I already knew was how to edit these photos when uploaded to a computer or MAC; so this really came in handy, especially if I wanted an image in black and white changed from colour.

But with the likes of Adobe Photoshop, my knowledge was awful. To be quite honest, I wasn't confident at all in thinking what my product would look like in its final stages because of how limited my skill level was. Within this software, tools such as the 'Magic Wand Tool' and the 'Lasso Tool' helped me to edit my images on the different pages to a very high standard; they looked professionally done when I erased the background, and I was even able to use the 'Brightness' and 'Contrast' tools to change the colours of the images and the depth. Another element which I grasped was 'Layering'; at first I didn't have a clue on how it worked, but after help and a lot of time experimenting with moving the different 'layers' around so that the images and text could be either in front or behind one another, I was able to make the elements of a suitable music magazine look professional and to a good standard that looks realistic. Another one would be the ability to download different texts into the numerous different fonts that come with Photoshop; this really helped me to choose from a range of fonts that were suitable for the style of my magazine, like "TEAM SPIRIT' and 'LEMON DROP'... With many hours of building up these skills gradually, and finally coming to grips with this software, I felt as though my final product really reflects on how far I have advanced, and although my skill level even now isn't the best, my opinion on building my knowledge is positive wholly.

Furthermore, with evaluating my magazine I learnt how to use the likes of www.animoto.com, to produce professional-looking videos that were suitable in presenting a different form of media apart from the standard www.blogger.com, which helped me to make my blog look professional however and make my media knowledge expand further with different elements. I would say that Blogger was the easiest aspect to grasp; it's simple and straightforward to use, and let me add links and photographs to my posts, expanding on the content of them. It gave me far more freedom than the standard essay; it let me delve into my creative side and even change the backdrop for my blog, and add my own personal twist towards it.

On a whole, I feel as though I have really learnt the most on Adobe Photoshop. Like I said, my knowledge was very limited, but after time I really got the hang of using the software. It helped me to edit photos in a way that I have never known before; unlike Microsoft Publisher which I used to create my preliminary task. Although at first, I couldn't come to terms with layering on Photoshop, after a while, I learnt that they were really important for editing/hiding/deleting certain aspects in all three of my magazine pages.