Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

For our preliminary task we did not really experiment with different techniques on PhotoShop whereas for my music magazine i used different tools and techniques.to make the final products.
Our preliminary task did not include a lot of text, also the text that was used was all in the same colour. We did not experiment much with the different types of colours and fonts for the front cover.
The main focus of our preliminary task was the picture of the model, it takes up most of the front cover and is also quite eye-catching for a young target audience which is what we wanted. Our target audience would have been more interested in looking at pictures than reading a lot of text. I did not like the fact that we didn't really experiment with different colours and fonts for the text used for this task. Also we only included one small bit of text, we should have added some more to make it look informative and more like a school magazine. However what i did like about our preliminary task was that it had a very eye-catching colour scheme. This made the magazine stand out quite a lot as the colour of the text matched what the model was wearing and the text background matched with the picture nicely making it look more effective. This is the idea that i also used for my music magazine. Although i experimented with the colour and font of the text more than my preliminary task, i made sure it matched something that the model was wearing such as her lipstick. This is so that it looks more put together and nothing looks out of place.
 I feel as if i have improved my skills and learnt to use PhotoShop in a more effective way from my preliminary task to my final music magazine as i used more techniques and ideas to make it look slightly more professional. I have learnt how to crop out image backgrounds using a number of tools such as the lasso tool or the quick selection tool, this is something that i would not know how to do in my preliminary task. I also used gradients for my magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread, this made my magazine look more professional and brought out the background colour a lot as the background for my magazine was always plain. I experimented more with the text font and colour in my music magazine than my preliminary task this is because my music magazine gave me more of a chance to try out different skills as i knew what my target audience really wanted and also the fact that the music magazine was pop so it demanded a lot of eye-catching colours and fonts. My preliminary task did not include a bar code or the magazine website and date. For my music magazine i learnt how to add a bar code and change the size or move it between different tabs on PhotoShop.
Because i did not add a bar code in my preliminary task, it made it harder for me to carry out this task on my music magazine because i did not know how to, however the process was quite easy and i understood it quickly. The rectangle tool on PhotoShop used to highlight text or create shapes was something i used in my preliminary task, this helped me to use it in my music magazine.
Overall there was many tools and techniques that i have learnt and used in my magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread which i did not use in my preliminary task. My music magazine has helped improve my skills for future work on PhotoShop.