Draft Question 6

Throughout my experience of this unit of making our magazines I feel as if I have learnt a huge amount from the jump at GCSE level, the professional software we have been introduced too have been a massive benefit towards the final product of our magazine. The benefit I feel I had was the experience of using Photoshop from GCSE level this gave me added information on the software ensuring I felt more confident when making my edits from my Photoshop - however, before I didn’t know the full depth use of the software however this time learned how to turn edits black and white yet change certain features to a natural colour, for example turning an image black and white but making my models lips red. Having the power to change around the colouring and lighting of photos meant dark photos I could bring to life and highlight my models facial features. The patch tool that Photoshop provides gives you a chance to blemish your models face and remove anything on the image in which you feel would make it look un-professional this is a huge benefit when editing close up photos for the front cover and you want the photo to look as clear as possible.

Moving on to the new software I have been using - Indesign. Indesign is a brilliant software when creating your magazine as the tools you are using ensure a professional appearance to your product, my favourite element of the software was the paragraph styles you can use, this allows you to use a specific font, size and colour and repeatedly use it whenever you want meaning the text style will always be the same throughout the magazine helping to hold the professional house style. When making my contents page I found this element of the software particularly helpful, it is important that throughout the contents page everything looks similar and using this tool enabled me to do this, it meant I could create my magazine a lot quicker and ensure no errors. Another benefit of Indesign which I loved was when pressing 'W' and 'shift' you are able to see columns on the magazine highlighting if all the images are on the same line and length this ensured nothing was wonky or unprofessional. When adding your article onto your double page spread I found it particularly easy and quick as you just add the text where you want it to go and click a button and it text wraps the writing around the chosen images for example.

The photos you choose to use in your magazine play a massive role on the final product, however this is dependent on how good the photos are which relies on how good the camera and lighting quality are. The camera that we used to take the images where on a canon camera with a white drop background behind with lighting which went off every time you took an image, ensuring it was easy to edit photos and meant the model stood out in particular for the front cover image where I feel it is important that there is no other detail on an image other than a close up of the model.