Photoshop Tutorial

In this post I will indentify the different features in the programme photoshop that I used.

In this screenshot is all the different layers I used for my final product, as you can see the layers allowed me to control where the different parts of my magazines went and it was easier than doing the magazine on this than it was microsoft word for example.
On some of the layers there is a danger sign because there are some fonts missing as I am currently using a different computer than my original therefore I do not have the fonts saved unfortanely. In order to get my new fonts on to photoshop I have to save them into my network area from the internet (if that is where you found them in the first place) once you have done this they will appear in the fonts toolbar.

This is the tool I used to put in my front cover different texts. It's located on the left hand side of the screen in a photoshop document.

I changed the colours of the text using the font tools on photoshop and used the

I then used the spot healing tool on this mock front cover to make the image look professional.

Final Product

This is my final double page spread that I think will appeal to the audience and socioeconomic status that I chose.

This is my final front cover that I think will appeal to the audience and socioeconomic status that I chose.

Production Monitoring blog

Each week I am going to makie time to update my blog to let other's know how my production is going and what challenges I am facing and how i've overcome them.

The first day that I started the project I already had ideas of what I wanted to have in my pictures, therefore I started to put on photoshop the ideas that I had in my head and also start the production time table that I would be following from as my production goes on. I also took the beginning stages to book my photo shoot, once I had thought of my final idea I had to go out and buy the props for the shoot and start to choose fonts and colours for the articles.

The week beginning 7th March was the week of my photoshoot, the shoot went very well I took some great pictures that were all different in their own way, because of the way i'd positioned the lights outside the photo and the different types that I used. This is what I had came up with at the end of the shoot as you can see there is a small light on the floor on the right hand side, this is a special light used especially for water photo's and it basically shines a light directly on to the tank so that the water looks clear therefore if the tank isn't a clear tank it can be fixed with this light. Because my tank was blue this light was almost essential to the shoot because without it the photo would look almost amature which isn't what the aim of my production is, my aim is to be taken seriously with serious photo's and articles. This is my finished image, the image that I am going to be using on the front cover of my magazine, I chose this one because it looked the most professional out of all the other pictures I took, when you look at the image its obvious whats going on in the image to the audience and that is another objective of mine. Also on this Week I started to look at lay outs of magazines so that I could decide what lay out I would like to use on my magazine.

Week beginning 21st March 2011, this week my aims are to get my articles written and start to piece together my magazine, recently last week I ran into some trouble and wrote my article wrong, I wont go into details however it resulted into re-writting my article so I guess you could say I'm now slightly behind. Writting a new article shouldn't take me long, however it also means I need to gather new research to put into my article which is what's going to make it take a bit longer. I also wish to put font into my article and have an experiment with that. Last week because the only thing I had my mind set on was to write articles a week has been wasted, I did however put my main photo on to a new document on to photoshop and edited it therefore that is ready to become my front cover.   I also had the problem last week that I had made my images from my photo shoot in a landscape way, instead of portraight, I had to overcome this by going into photo shop and copying the top of the photo then almost stretching it out to create an effect of portrait photo.

This is the final week of my production week beginning 28/03/2011, this week I hope to finish all of my work, my front cover and double page spread, last week I managed to get half of my double page spread, this week I hope to complete that with the extra hours I am getting from free periods and staying in college after hours.

This is my final post, I have completed all of my production work now in this final week of 11th April, 2011 I am hoping to write all my evaluations, it has been a good year and I am proud of my achievements.

Final draft of double page spread

This is my finished double page spread for my magazine that contains an article about disability.

Double page spread draft 1

This is the first draft of my double page spread, I can make the guide lines bigger or smaller at the start of creating a new document, I can choose the width and length that I want my spread to be and how mant columns I want in. I can also add text boxes and adjust them to the size I want and where I want them, I do this by clicking the box with the cross in the middle on the far left hand side of the page.Before I start to create a new document I need to create new folders so that I can put individual segments in them, for example the different types of fonts I download from the internet and use would have to go inside the "Fonts" folder, the text I use has to go in a seperate folder labled "Text" and the images I use has to go into a seperate folder labled "Images".
When creating a new document I can also edit how big I want the inside lines and outside lines also the gutter which is the gap between the columns. I can place my text from another word document into my magazine document by right clicking on any box, "content" and "Text" this will make the text box only accept text. Next I have to click on file and place, browse for the document on your area and okay. Once you have done this you can add your text into other boxes by clicking the red box in the right hand corner of each box.

Magazine blog write up

For my print production I had to create a front cover for a new magazine, the name of my magazine is "Bop" it's full of articles that are about the latest music, models, fashion and it also has articles that people have written in about on previous articles. It's aimed at girls and some boys who want to read the reviews about the music, aged 16-25 basically for people who are still interested in fashion. I have used a formal language so that the audience can understand what the producers have written, if people can't read the "slang" that I might have put in then they're not going to buy the magazine again this is why I just used formal language. I started off by adding my main image into a blank photoshop page, i'm using this software because it's easy to use once you know how to do it. I added in my main image by clicking the file button and open, then i browsed for the file/image that I wanted as my main image and opened it, I had to resized it to the shape and size of the page that I had orginally chosen right at the beginning and then I began to tint it and get rid of any fine lines or spots on the image to make the magazine look professional. I had already came up with the name of the magazine previously so I added in text by clicking on the "T" icon in the toolbar, sizing a suitable text box for the writting and changing the font, colour and size of my text then typing in "Bop" in the top left hand corner where they're is a space that the text is not going to block any of the main image. Ihen repeated this proccess but came up with tag lines for what is going to be inside my magazine, I also changed the colour of the font so that when the audience looked at the magazine they would see the writting and be automatically attracted to it and want to buy the produce. I had to then go online to google images and save a bar code and then add it into my front cover. the same way I added in my main imame I did this to make my magazine look like a reality magazine and one that the public would buy as apose to just a media project.

Side lighting

 This is a prime example of front lighting, positioning the subject in rear view of the sun emphasises her face and makes the subject in the photo look more realistic, this is what front and side lighting is supposed to do. I could to make this photo better experiement with the manual focus a bit more so that the background doesn't look as blured as it is in this photo. I could also experiment with the shutter speed more and let more light in however I think if I let anymore light in then the photo would be overexposed.

Side lighting can create male features on a photo i.e. it emphasises with a subjects jaw line, most female models are pictured in a front rear view light, this is to emphasise the jaw lines and make them look more feminan. This is a good example of side lighting, see how it realistically makes the jaw line look more feminan, I could improve this photo by standing closer to the subjects face or zooming in on her face.

This is another good example of side lighting again the light coming from the right hand side makes the subjects jaw look more feminan, it is a bit over exposed but not a lot so that it isn't useable in my evaluation. Also I could of zoomed out a bit more because I have cut out the subjects hair which if I did this in the future then people would take the image more seriously and think it was done more professionally.

This is a portrait picture, however for this image I used a gold foil lighting in front of the subjects face to put a better light and a more natural look on to the subjects face, I could of made this photo better by making the background different, a darker shade just so that the subject stood out more. Or I could use different coloured foils that would mix in with the background then meaning I wouldn't have to change the setting for example if I used a colder colour foil then waited until a dark time of the day then I could get away with making the setting look like a dark, cold ally way on the street. The way the subject is expressing her emotions on her face would also fit in with this. I would have to use a small amount of shutter speed if I was to try and create this because I don't want a lot of light in, just so much that will go on to the subject and show her emotions.

Shutter speed

 This is a photo taken in TV mode, this means that I can control how fast the shutter speed is the shutter speed means that however many seconds it takes for the shutter to open and close it controls how much light goes into the picture. This determines whether the photo will be over or under exposed to light. I took it at 1/250th of a second, this is because the person in this photo is not going at a fast pace, if she was running for example it would be a lot higher.
The problem with this photo is if you don't take the photo quick enough for the person in the photo to be in mid air then it wont work. I could solve this problem by taking the photo at the correct time when the person is in mid air. Next time when I take this photo I could make the shutter speed at a higher level because then more light will go into the picture and the picture will be a better quality. Other possible problems with this photo is that the subject is too far away, I could solve this problem by moving forward myself or using a zoom motion on the camera. When taking a photo I could take my time and review images when I've taken them, then if they are wrong I can re take them and think about how I take a photo the next time. Another problem that could affect the way I take a photo is if pictures have a focal blur, this can be solved for the next time by putting the camera into automatic focus mode which is when the camera automatically focuses for you before you go to take a photo.

In this photo I should of used the shutter speed control to put more light into the picture, I could improve on this next time by adjusting the shutter speed, I also should have been closer to the subject I could improve on this by moving closer to the subject or zooming in on the camera.

This is a good example of shutter speed control, the subject is laughing and because the subject and I were positioned in a shadowy place I had to use shutter speed control to control how much light was put into the picture other wise the picture would look too dark a way of controling this would be increasing the ISO speed of your camera (for example 1/500th of a second)

Print Skills

AS Media Production

Technical Skills Audit Print Production

Name: Hannah Bradford             Tutor group: 201                 Date:22/09/2010

Photographic Skills

Which of the following photographic features/equipment have you used on a camera before:

Feature	Yes	No	Comments if yes – where have you completed this skills and to what level
Manual Focus features		x
Shutter Speed		x	By the end of my course I would like to have learnt how to do this at an expert level. This will gradually become a skill of mine as I carry on using cameras in the project.
Aperture control		x
ISO Control		x
A tripod		x
External flash		x
Self timer facility		x
Light meter		x
Composition grids		x

Photoshop Skills

Which of the following features of Photoshop have you used before:

Feature	Yes	No	Comments if yes – where have you completed this skills and to what level
Have you aver used Photoshop ever before?		x
Text control		x
Filters		x
Brushes		x
Layers		x	I used this in my first project, I used it well and understood how to use it by dragging and clicking the different layers according to how you want your design to be layered.
Opacity control		x
Shape creation		x
Brightness and contrast control		x
Gradients		x
Load selection features		x
Feathering		x
Colour curves adjustment		x	I would like to be able to experiment with the colours of Photoshop; I will hopefully be able to do this by the end of the course by using Photoshop in my project more.
Resolution setting control		x
Magnetic lasso, polygon lasso tool		x
Cropping tool	x		I have used this tool on Microsoft word, I feel I know how to use it very well, I know the icon to look out for when using it on another programme and I know how to structure it on to a page.
Clone tool		x
Retouch tool		x

Evaluation

1.      The skills I used in my first project were:

·         Cropping tool

·         Layers

·         Text control

2. I used these skills effectively during my project by highlighting certain images that I wanted to crop to do this I had to use the control and T approach; this is an effective skill that I can later use on the course.

 I used layers to control what was going to be my main image, what was going to be on top of that etc this was effective because without this tool the A4 project wouldn’t look appropriate.

I used text control to control what colours I wanted on my text, what size I wanted it and any other effects I wanted on it. This was effective because it makes my advertisement look a lot more attractive to the audience and to make them interested in buying the product. By making my text bold and stand out that’s what attracts the audience.

3.  So early in the course I don’t know all the skills that are required for Photoshop or using a camera, therefore by posting on my blog my storyboard which I took photos for and annotated them is showing other blog users that I can use a camera even if I don’t know how to use all the other features. Posting my final design also shows that I can now use Photoshop and basic tools such as cropping, text editing and layering.

4. To improve my work I believe I could have learnt more skills and ways to change my images and text using Photoshop, this would make the advertisement look more stylish and eye catching.

5. I would change the way I took my photos, because we could only take a photo with 2 people because we only had 3 people in our group, therefore I would make sure we had another person to take a group picture then I wouldn’t have had to crop the 3^rd person into the picture. It would look more professional if I did. Or as an alternative if I couldn’t find another person to take the photo we could have used a tripod, this would add to what skills I would have learnt and used.

       6. The target audience before I re-branded my product was mostly children because it’s a sweet,             it could have also been the elderly because of the liquorish taste, now the new target audience is mainly teenagers, however anyone could enjoy the advert because it’s not complicated or based around teenagers.

7. The colour scheme that I used (red, black and white) grabs the audiences’ attention because they contrast together and they stand out to hook the reader in. The real life picture grabs the readers attention even more because of the reality that could be the reader.

8. The elements that don’t work are the outline of the white, I think a different colour would have been more appealing to the audience and look a better standard.

9. My project is tailor made to meet the audiences’ expectations; the actors in the advert are around the age that the audience is then therefore the audience can relate to the emotions of the actors that are consuming the product. This also persuades the audience that if the actors like blackjacks and they are the same age as the audience then the audience must like them too.

10. I think my project understands the needs of the segmentation audience because the actors are the same age therefore the audience can relate to what they’re thinking. We thought that the audience should be teen-age because they are more likely to buy them than adults, however this can also be aimed at children because it’s such a simple advert children will understand it.