Media Evaluation - Technologies

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

During the construction of my magazine I have used various technologies including publisher, picasa, a digital camera, word etc. Through creating my magazine I have improved my skills with using these technologies and effectively created an appealing and professional magazine.

Photos: I took my photos with my digital camera, getting a variety of distances and shots to make sure that I had plenty of shots to edit and potentially use in my magazine. The photos took in London were made sure to be against backgrounds where the location was obvious. This made is easier for the audience to relate to it and the model. The photos took around my home area were constructed in a way to make sure the background looked professional and could be cropped so that the model was completely in the shot and no dodgy background features like windows were in there. These criteria meant I had to eliminate the use of a lot of my shots.

Editing: To edit my photos I used editing software called picasa. This simple and easy to operate program allowed me to effectively edit my shots resulting in much clearer and professional looking photos.

For my front cover shot I first had to crop the shot so it could fit the whole page of my front cover while still showing a mid-shot of the model. I removed the red eyes, ‘warmified’ it to sort out the colours, and then slightly shadowed and highlighted the photo. This really made it pop and the model stood out from against the background rather than looking plain against it.

I was able to use this software very efficiently while editing my photos and get the look I desired with no complications. I was also able to explore the program and learn much more about how to effectively edit photos from seeing all the things I could use. For my other photos, I used the same kind of techniques; red eye removal, ‘warmify’ to balance colours, then a slight shadow and highlight to make key areas pop. I used the skills I already had in editing photos and developed them through doing this for each one of my photos I used in the final product. Examples of how I edited the photos I used are below:

This screenshot shows the program picasa that I used to edit my photos, the clear layout and easy to operate tools allowed to me to create professional photos to the best of my abilities.

Microsoft publisher: I used Microsoft publisher in the constructing of my magazine. It was the most effective technology to use and allowed me to create and effective magazine that was extremely appealing to my target audience. It was easy to use and the best program to use when trying to construct my product.

For my front cover, I used an ordered layout which I created with my coverlines. These were made with word art, then the font, size, and colour was changed, placing them down the sides and across the bottom. By surrounding the body of the model in the photo in a neat and ordered way, I appealing to my mature target audience. Word art was a very effective and easy to use feature and helped me create a professional look to my magazine. The technology publisher allowed me to move items around freely until I got them to where I wanted. It was very easy to construct the layout and how to effectively use the route of eye in appealing to the target audience while using it.

 My front cover was created in various steps using publisher with several drafts before I got to the final product. Through these drafts my skills in this technology drastically improved as I learnt how to use it to the best of my abilities to create a great product.

For my contents page, I constructed columns by using textboxes for my coverlines. This created an effective and ordered layout to appeal to the audience. This technology once again helped me to create a great product by using word art, autoshapes, text boxes etc. I was able to construct the most effective layout that appealed to the target audience and a professional one too. To get to this final product using publisher, I had many drafts. So it was created in several steps to create an effective contents page. Publisher allowed me to try out various different fonts and colours to see which would look better. The layout was also changed throughout to look more effective.

Double page spread: I also used publisher to construct my double page spread for my final magazine product. The ordered and effective columns were created by three individual textboxes arranged next to each other with the sizes changed so they did not overlap. The pull quote, masthead and kicker were created by word art so the size and position could be easily changed, creating a more effective layout. The page numbers were also created by word art, aiming to make it look more realistic. Other examples of this are the ‘interview conducted by’ and ‘photography by’. These little features just make it look more real. The masthead’s union jack was created by downloading a photo from the internet and placing into the font. This added to the theme and made the spread much more effective. I was also able to use the technology of the internet to create it. The photos were edited like the rest using picasa (a photo editing program). They were then inserted using publisher, and arranged to create and efficient and appealing layout. Publisher was a great technology for allowing me to move things around so easily and create and appealing and professional spread.

 From constructing my magazine using various technologies from a photo editing software to the internet, I have created a professional and appealing magazine. I have developed my skills in all of the various technologies I have used. Understanding better how to use them and the various things you can do on them.