Evaluation Question 6 - "What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?"

This is a photo of me using an SLR digital camera, which I used to take all of the photographs that appear in my magazine. It took the images with great detail and allowed me to get depth into my images.

This is a photo of me using Blogger, which I used to create my blog and document my research, manufacturing and evaluation throughout the project.

This is a photo of me using InDesign CS4. It took a while to get to grips with this program, which slowed me down significantly and made it seem difficult to use. I think that if I had experimented and played around with the program beforehand, a lot of the problems and issues that I had (such as inserting images and text and changing font colours), would have never occurred. InDesign CS4 was very useful for applying the same effects to separate pieces of text quickly. I also liked that you could arrange everything out in boxes before inserting text and images, and it allowed you to make changes to the layout without having to insert and re size everything and then realise that it was incorrect.

This is a screen grab of using the text tool which applied the same effects to other pieces of text.

This is a screen grab of using the re-sizing tool which was extremely useful as it enabled the images to be re-sized to the box you had created around them proportionally, instead of having to go back to Adobe Photoshop CS4 to edit the sizes.

This is a photo of me using Adobe Photoshop CS4, which I used for making my cover. I made the document in a 300 pixel per inch ratio, which made all of my images clear and detailed. This program was beneficial when arranging text, changing the main image to grey scale and creating logos/ text. Adobe Photoshop CS4 was a lot easier and less complicated to use than I imagined it would be. At first I had a bit of difficulty with resizing the images, but after that I found all of the tools in genius and helpful. Possibly the most helpful was the colour sampler tool which enabled all of the colours to match and made a successful colour scheme. I also liked the greyscale tool and the tool which makes the gap between letters in text bigger and smaller, making them close or further away. In addition to this, it was useful to be able to increase the contrast in the image, as it made it bolder and helped it to stand out more.

This is a screen grab of increasing the distance between the letters.

This is a screen grab of using the transform tool, which enables you to re-size and rotate text.

Technology has been important in this project and without it, it would have been a long and arduous task. Each letter and image would have had to have been cut out by hand and arranged carefully, then stuck down. It would have been virtually impossible to line them up correctly and it wouldn't have been accurate or neat at all. Technology made the task much easier.