What Have You Learnt About Technology’S From The
- 1. What have you learnt about technology’s from the process of constructing the product?
- 2. Digital SLR, Photoshop & Quark Express For my media product, I had access to digital SLR camera’s loaded with professional technology. This enabled me to take professional appearing photo’s which I could edit on professional software such as Photoshop and Quark Xpress. I felt that the camera’s worked well and stopped blurring on most occasions. The cameras were easy to use and quick to upload photo’s onto the computer with a USB cable reading for editing. When editing my photo’s I used Photoshop. On Photoshop I learned how to make my pictures seem more effective and fit in with my indie jazz genre, for example: I wanted to change the colour of a photo to black and white and therefore used the ‘mode’ button to transform it into a ‘greyscale’ picture. I also learnt how to increase shadow and lighting on the photo’s using the ‘levels’ tool. For example, after printing off a hard copy of my double page spread I realised that the photos needed to be slightly lighter to be seen so I used the ‘levels’ tool to lighten them. I also used Photoshop to edit out the blemishes of some of my models using the ‘spot healing brush’ in which you airbrush the photo’s with. This left the pictures with a airbrushed, model look. On one photo I used the ‘dropper’ tool which enabled me to enhance the colour of a models eyes and lips. I also learned how to use simple tools such as the ‘crop’ tool in which you can cut parts of the picture out and more complex tools such as the ‘lasso tool.’ I used the lasso tool for the picture on my front cover as I wanted to place the model over the top of the writing. The ‘lasso’ tool cuts around the outside of a picture without it’s background. This was tricky to use but looked effective when finished.
- 3. Quark Express enabled me to make a professional looking magazine. For my magazine photo, I learned that the photo would not become blurred when made larger if you clicked the ‘fit to box’ button. I also used Quark to insert fonts into my magazine from ‘dafont.com’. This meant that I did not have to use standard fonts, aiding the professional feel of the magazine. Quark made it easy for me to arrange photo’s and texts in my magazine. For example, I placed my contents page photo’s on top of one another to resemble a Polaroid picture. Quark also allowed me to create a conventional appearing double page spread. I learned how to use the ‘columns’ tool which once again aided the professional look of my magazine. I also learned how to use simple tools on Quark such as drawing lines behind text on my double page spread, which added to the professional and intricate detail of my magazine. I was also able to use a layering tool to fit the picture I edited in photo shop over the top of my original media product. Quark also had an ‘adjustments’ tool which allowed you to align all the photo’s to be the same shade, for example: the three photo’s on my contents page all had different harshness of shadow and so I used the ‘adjustments’ tool to make sure they all had the same shade to make them look equal.
- 4. Blogging Blogging was really effective in helping to keep track of what I learnt. It also helped keep track of the mistakes I made using publishing software such as Photoshop and Quark Express. For example, on my front cover, the writing inside my screamer was blurred and hard to read. So I was able to understand that I needed to create the screamer on Photoshop then import it into Quark Express. Blogging also helped me to present my research and planning in a clear coherent way. I was able to upload pictures which I felt represented the genre’s easily, upload sketches and drafts and blog about various indie or jazz artists. I was able to keep a record of my research, for example: pictures that represent indie and jazz music, then could refer back to them whilst in the production stage to see if I was keeping with the correct style. My blogs were clear as they were labelled by their correct production stage, this allowed me to look easily through them if I needed to refer back to any research or production method in my media product. Blogging was also good at organizing my time, for example, I was able to create a shot list and upload it to my blog, which I was then able to refer back to it during the production stages.
- 5. The Web Youtube I used youtube to research indie music and jazz music. It helped me to understand the different styles of music including the way that they use clothing and attitude to represent their style of music. I looked at bands performing such as Bombay Bicycle Club and then looked at jazz artists such as Nina Simone perform live. I compared the two styles of performance and style and this helped me to merge the ideas into one genre. Facebook I used Facebook to help me get feedback from my audience. As I developed my magazine and was trying new ideas, I would upload screenshots of my magazine from Quark Express to Facebook. I would then tag friends who I felt represented my audience well, then work on the advice and criticism they gave me. This helped me develop ideas and I eventually created a ‘media’ photo album in which all my friends could comment and give suggestions for my photo’s and overall media product. Dafont Dafont was really good at helping me to find quirky, individual texts for my media product. I would insert a keyword such as ‘indie’ into the toolbar and lots of quirky, unusual fonts would appear. It helped me to combine different fonts to create an unusual look for my magazine.
- 6. Has this technology been useful? I found the technology I used was good because it helped me to create a professional and polished end result for media product. The easiest piece of media equipment to use was the digital SLR camera, it was simple to understand and worked effectively. It was also easy to understand the technique for uploading photo’s.The camera allowed me to take good shots at various angles and would always come out with a good photo which wasn’t blurred. I found that Photoshop was complicated at first yet easier to understand the simple appliances as you used it more. For example, using the ‘magic wand’ tool was complex at first, but once you understood it, was easy to use. It was easy to edit the colouring of photo’s using the ‘mode’ and ‘shadow’ tool but it was harder to adjust certain parts of the photo’s lighting. Quark Express created a good end result but was extremely confusing and irritating. When inserting text onto my media product, I had to open the ‘dafont’ files before opening Quark. This led to a pile up on the screen and often ended with the computer freezing, which was very frustrating. Many of the simple toolbars were not on show and so I had to search for appliances such as ‘insert picture’ which also became really frustrating. However, despite Quark being really difficult to understand, it did create a good end result. My blog was useful as it helped with time management with the use of shot lists and planning blogs. This helped me to know where I should be at what time and whether I was keeping up with schedule. My blog also allowed me to vent any ideas I had by uploading sketches, pictures etc. This helped me to draw a conclusion for my final idea because I had lots of ideas to look at in the planning part of my blog. However, I did find that moving pictures around on the blog to arrange them next to text was slightly difficult and could often end up in the wrong place when published.