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

Throughout the progress of producing my magazine I used a number of different programs/technologies. The following is a list of the programmes and sites that I used throughout the project.

• Photoshop - I used this programme to produce magazine cover, contents page and double page spread. It is an editing programme which allowed you to produce images by usinga variety of different tools. I was already quite used to using photoshop when I started this project and I knew most of the basics. Like layers, adjustments etc. One thing that I did learn whilst making my magazine pages was how to cut out a person from a photograph more easily, and so that they looked better.
• Blogger - Blogger is an online site which allows you to post things to the internet. I used blogger to document my project as I went along. Posting the planning, photos, final products and the evaluation. This site will allow the work to be seen altogether in one place, which is an advantage of using a site like blogger. One disadvantage I found with using Blogger is that the layout doesn't really look good, and the posts to me look like a mess.
• Flickr - I used Flickr to produce analyisis' of existing magazine pages. It enabled me to upload photographs to the site and then add notes to the photographs analysing what they pointed at. This is an effective way of producing an analysis because it is easy to see what I'm talking about. If I had just produced a written analysis on Word I would have had to describe what I was talking about in more detail. The option of the note tool on Flickr made this not necessary. Before using Flickr for this project I thought Flickr was just a site for uploading photograhs and displaying them. I have learnt that you can a lot more on it that I originally though.
•  Microsoft Word - I produced my double page spread article on this programme. I was then able to copy the text from the Word document into the photoshop document when it was necessary.

Here is a screencap of photoshop to show the tools and everything that I had to work with whilst producing my magazine pages:

Another piece of technology that I used to complete my magazine pages was a Digital Camera. It was a Sony Cybershot. I used the camera to take the photographs for my magazine pages. When taking the photographs I considered the angles that would work best in my magazine and if I knew that I would need t cut part of a photograph, for example the main photograph on the front cover, I took it against a blank background to allow me to do this more easily. I took the photographs for the girl band 'Hey You' against a blank pale background as well as this would allow me to contrast the people in the photo against the wall a lot. Other things that I focussed on using the camera were the angle that I took the photographs from and the shot distance. The longest shot distance that I took from was the photo for my double page spread with the person leaning up against the wall. I took this from such a long shot because I wanted to be able to create the effect that he would be leaning aganst the middle of the page, and I felt this would work best if you could see the whole body. Below is a picture of the camera model that I used.

Another piece of technology that I used was the memory card that went in the camera. I didn't just use it as a memor card for the camera I also transferred my photoshop documents of the magazine pages to it so that I could work on them at home on photoshop. I also used a Dell pc and a HP pavillion laptop throughout the project, these are technologies too.

I feel that the majority of the technology that I used was a good choice. However I would have preferred to write analyses in a more traditional style than on Flickr because I prefer to be able to see the writing on a page than having to go onto to the Flickr photo and hover over each section to see the analysis. I also am not keen on using Blogger for the blog because I feel that the layout of it doesn't look very good. If I had been allowed to change the template/html I probably would have liked the look of the blog, but using just the simple Blogger template I don't really like how it looks. I feel that using photoshop to create my magazine pages was good and that using it made me able to make the magazine pages look to a high standard.