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

During the making of my magazine, I used a number of programs such as Adobe Paintshop and Adobe Indesign.

I used Paintshop to produce my front cover and my contents page. I made a number of mastheads for my magazines using different fonts and colours and then asked members of my target audience which they preffered to then end up with my final masthead. I also used Paintshop to cut around my cover image and the images on my double page spread the pen tool. This was really helpful as it helped to acheive a more proffesional end result. Paintshop was a good program to use for the creative aspects of my magazine such as mastheads, headings, effects and also editing any images to make them look more proffesional and suitable for my magazine.

 Above are two examples of mastheads which I created using Adobe Photoshop.

I also used Adobe Indesign to put my double page spread together. This program really helped as it was easy to place the features of my double page spread onto the two pages, such as text, photos and any headings (which I made on photoshop).

Above is my double page spread which I created using Adobe Indesign.

I found photoshop easy to use and quickly learnt some skills which I used throughout the making of my magazine, for example, shadowing and outerglow, which are common aspects of my magazine. I also found the manipulation of photos helpful, for example, turning photos from colour to greyscale, but with the same good quality. I needed to use this manipulation for the images on my contents page, as I used all greyscale photos:

 

 

I feel that the above image looks for effective in greyscale, and also suited to the colour scheme of my magazine better in greyscale than in colour. Without photoshop, I wouldn't have been able to manipulate the images successfully. I manipulated many of the images I used throughout my magazine, sometimes just subtly like editing the contrast for example. Photoshop allowed me to make my magazine more professional and look more realistic by allowing me to edit the photos to make them look a better quality.

I also made the blend for my double page spread on photoshop:

Without photoshop, I wouldn't have been able to group the photos together. I also would not have been able to cut around the individual images with such prescision. I also used the blur tool to go around the edge of each photo to make it look smoother and less jagged from the cut tool. This made it look much more professional.

Overall, I found both Indesign and Photoshop helpful programs to use, however, Indesign was more difficult to use, but ensured that my double page spread looked tidy - Indesign allows you to line up your text in collumns exactly, so it looks professional and realistic.