Evaluation - Part 7 - I have learnt...

I feel I have learnt a lot since completing the preliminary task. I have mainly learnt about Photoshop and all the different techniques that you can use to make the skin clear and to make the pictures brighter and stand out more. The techniques I learnt include the spot healing tool which allows you to remove spots on the models face or body, before constructing this magazine I was unaware of the spot healing tool and how effective it could be.  

The above images show me using the spot healing tool in enhance my pictures.

I learnt that not only can you just insert text on to the picture but you can also alter the picture so it looks completely different. This is best shown in the tutorial we did on how to alter the picture.

 As you can see the photo to the left is the before shot and the picture to the right is the after edited shot. We learnt how to produce the picture on the right and how to apply it to our own pictures. In the tutorial we learnt about the spot healing tool and many others that can be used to influence the pictures and to make them have a more professional finish.

I have also learnt that research is very important and looking at other magazine front covers to see what the typical music magazine looks like, the conventions of a magazine such as the masthead, left third, flash/splash, header, features and many others. I also researched the average price of magazines, which I discovered was £3.00.  The main inspiration for my magazine came from looking at other pop magazines such as Billboard. I got the idea for my masthead from Billboard as it stood out against all the other pop magazines, and it also looked fun and appealing to my target audience.

By looking at other magazine it made the whole process a lot easier to understand and achieve. This was a great help for me as I’m not a very imaginative person and it helped me to visualise what I wanted my final piece to look like. Compared to the main task the preliminary task was a lot different to produce. This was because the pictures were different and had to portray the school/college in the pictures, whereas the music magazine pictures had to portray the artist and what there about in the pictures. For example in the picture to the left below is from my college magazine and the girl in the shot is representing Wyke as a whole not just herself. This is shown in the way she is stood slightly to the side so the college can be seen in the background. Whereas, in the picture below to the right is the picture from my music magazine cover, the difference is, is that the girl in the music magazine is portraying herself and what kind of 'artist' she is. this is shown by the fact she is holding a guitar. The background in the picture also suggests that it is set in an urban environment, this is important as it will engage the urban teenage readers.  

 I have also learnt that time keeping is important, especially in the music magazine task. I found when looking back that I worked a lot slower than what I should have been doing, and part of this was not realising how much work was needed to be done in such a short time space that seemed a lot longer than what it actually was.