Evaluation Draft Question 6

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

Editing Technology/Software:

Computer:  For the majority of the process when constructing my magazine I used the computers at school during lesson time, study periods and working after school. I felt more comfortable working on the computers at school rather than working from home on my laptop and the school computers are of much better quality that the hardware I have to use at home (they are equipped with HD screens), I managed my time wisely at school giving myself enough time to complete the magazine.

Adobe Photoshop CS6 Extended: This is the editing software I used throughout the process of constructing my magazine on the school computers. When starting the preliminary task I wasn’t a confident user of Photoshop, but after lots of practice I have developed my skills and have used the software to my advantage, editing and creating my final product to the best of my ability.

Microsoft Word 2007: I used Word to write up my double page spread article, it gave me the chance to correct any spelling errors and edit my article with ease before inserting it into the Photoshop document; it also enabled me to keep a word count and structure my writing before inserting it into my magazine.

Paint: I used paint quite frequently, especially when print screening any work I had done and when producing my ‘Fashion & Costume’ post, I had used Paint a lot before in the past, due to this I was able to use it efficiently to present particular stages of my work.

Presentation Software:

Blogger: I used blogger throughout the process of constructing my magazine; I documented all stages of my coursework on my blog. Before this course I hadn’t used blogger before, now I have learnt how to use it properly, in presenting all my work from research, drafting, feedback, final product and now my evaluation. I feel it has been a great piece of software to use to present all my work throughout my course.

Animoto: I used this video creator in the early stages of this process to produce a pitch to present to my peers. I had never used Animoto before, but I found it so easy to use and it presented all my ideas really effectively, giving a great visual representation of my work.

Twitter: I posted some of my photographs on Twitter to get feedback from my friends and peers, it proved to be useful as my friends and ‘followers’ on Twitter would be part of the target audience for my magazine; so their feedback was very useful.

Flickr: After taking my images I uploaded them to Flickr, this created a ‘feed’ that I was able to post on my blog and allowed my peers to view the pictures in high definition and with ease.

Internet (Internet Explorer and Google Chrome): The internet was a vital part of my research, collecting images, magazine covers and information  helped me along the process in developing my ideas into a finished product.
e.g www.uktribes.com
      www.i-donline.com
      www.lookbook.nu

SlideShare: I used SlideShare during the research stage of this process, it enabled me to upload powerpoints of work I had created analysing magazine covers so it could be read and viewed with ease on my blog.

Practical/Hardware Technology:

Canon EOS 1000D (camera): This is my own personal camera that I used to take all of my photographs (cover, contents and double page spread), as it is a high quality and credible camera I feel that I got the best quality pictures possible. As it is my own camera, I already had good skills in photography so I was confident in my skills prior to shooting my images and I knew the certain settings that my camera needed to be on, the framing, use of flash etc.

Lighting: I used two soft lighting boxes to create the prefect ‘bright’ and ‘stark’ lighting for my photographs, these helped me to achieve great lighting and enhanced my model’s facial features. They also helped to eliminate any shadows and created more precise and high-quality images.