Question Six

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

Throughout the process of creating my product, there was a variety of technology used at each stage. Many of the technologies I used were of industry standard, which I believe heightened the overall aesthetic of the music magazine.

To take my pictures, I used a 50mm, 1.8f Prime Lens on a SLR 550D Canon. One advantage of using a digital camera was that it can store more photos than a film camera, giving me more of a variety in the photos I had taken. I think that one advantage of using a high quality camera is that they produce good quality photos, which was of the utmost importance as the photos hold the most prominence in the music magazine. Another advantage of using industry cameras is that they look professional. One thing I have learnt from using the camera was altering the ISO to give the photos more clarity.

Once I had taken the photos on the 550D Canon, I used Adobe Photoshop CS5 to edit them. Adobe Photoshop is a program where you can manipulate a photo, and enhance features on a model that are not naturally defined .One advantage of using In Photoshop is that it is a program that companies in the industry actually use – giving the photos a more professional aesthetic .One use that I used on the program of the tools is the Gaussian Blur. One reason why I used this tool was to hide / get rid of spots. By getting rid of the spots, it enhances elegance I attempted to make and also enhanced the quality of my photos. But one of the disadvantages of that is that if you don’t take out the background and don’t feather the edges – once placed on an InDesign document – the edges come out jaggedly. Therefore decreasing the quality of the overall product. Another tool which I used was an effect was the black and white effect in Photoshop. The reason why I used this effect on the photo is because i think this effect echoed the colours used in the house style. Another tool which I used on Photoshop was the action tool, as it created many layers to photo, increasing its depth. In conclusion, what I had learnt from using this program was that editing the photos gave them more clarity and made them look more professional.

I used InDesign to create my magazine. When I opened the document, I made the decision make a 7 page booklet. InDesign is a program that allows you to make pamphlets, books and magazines. One advantage of using InDesign is that Adobe InDesign you can wrap the image around the text – using the wrap text icon. This means that everything fits on the page neatly. Another tool which helped keep everything organised was the boundary lines. By pressing “W”, you can see what is kept within the boundaries of the page. Another use of InDesign is the idea that you can apply a drop shadow to both text and images, giving more prominence to the photo or text. However if overdone it may undermine the benefit of the drop shadow. For placing images, I clicked “File” and then “Import” to drop the edited photos that I edited in Photoshop. To separate my page, I used the line tool, another tool which helped keep the balance and symmetry of the magazine. In conclusion, what I had learnt from using this technology to create my product is that keeping everything in symmetry kept the music magazine in balance and looks very professional.

Overall the benefit of using technologies that companies in the industry use allows me to make my product as close to theirs as possible. However one of the drawbacks of both programs is the amount of time and skill needed to use the programs. Using industry standard programs means that neither of the technologies and programs are easy to use. I have however gained new skills and enhanced and my analytical skills, therefore making my product better.