Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? By Serena Bashal

DSLR Nikon Camera I hadn’t had much practise before construction of my magazine with DSLR cameras – only from photoshoots from my GCSE Media. We had a workshop in college on how to use the camera and set up the 3 point lighting which was very helpful – Over the process I learnt a lot about manipulating lighting to get the right image. Unfortunately, my lack of experience shone through as the majority of the photos from my main shoot were out of focus, and I didn’t get my exposure/white balance quite right, but at least I have now learnt for next time.

iPhone Camera A large portion of my shots were taken on iPhone cameras; iPhone 4s for one shoot and iPhone 6 for the others. Creating my magazine has made me realise how good the latest iPhones are for photography – the iPhone 6 has a phenomenal camera and is hassle-free transportable.

Photoshop I was already quite confident with using Photoshop manipulate and perfect images as I have had years of experience from studying ICT and media in secondary school. However, this project refined any previous questions I had of my ability on Photoshop and I am now fully confident in using all the different tools and doing advanced image manipulation. For example, just through experimentation while editing my photography, I know now how to change an originally black and white image to colour using different channels, adjustments and the history snapshot tool – this guide explained it all: black-and-white-photo/ black-and-white-photo/

InDesign InDesign was completely new for me as I had never used it before construction of my contents page and dps. The learning curve introduced me to a new software, therefore expanding my knowledge of possibilities when creating something like a magazine. I gained information on how to perfect text to the tiniest detail, such as adding drop caps and creating my own percentage of skew. I found InDesign a lot more complicated than using Photoshop as the layout of the software is trickier – in my opinion, Photoshop has a much simpler design, everything is laid out for you and everything does what you want it to do. InDesign, however, created problems for me – a prominent one being when you try and move an image, there are two separate frames, one for the actual image and one for the image + frame – it caused frustration when wanting to do something as simple as selecting an image with a mouse and moving it slightly. In spite of all of this, challenges are key to learning and the difficulties I initially had with InDesign only improved my technically ability even more.

Illustrator and the Colour Wheel In college, we had a workshop on how to use Adobe Illustrator. Again, this was my first time using this particular piece of software and I found it very interesting; you can do pretty much anything (in regards to manipulation) to a piece of text or an image, such as slightly shift a letter or two in a specific direction, cut precise sections off, skew/distort it – I created my masthead in this session. An additional feature we were taught how to use was the Adobe Colour Wheel, where you have the option to find the exact colour you need. It was actually quite simple to then incorporate that colour into Illustrator, all I had to do was copy in the HEX code.

Timetoast Another new piece of software I was introduced to over the course of this project was Timetoast. I found it fairly simple to use, the layout of the website was pretty self- explanatory and the result was a basic yet very effective product to organise deadlines. I learnt how to format my production schedule into a timeline where you can hover over bubbles with a mouse to get more information on it.

Blogger I had had previous experience with blogger from where I studied AS Media for a few months at my previous sixth form, however I didn’t use it to an advanced extent. After this project, I am confident with most features of blogger including embedding things like YouTube videos and presentations by converting the page to HTML mode, creating hyperlinks and publishing blog posts.

Prezi I was new to Prezi at the beginning of the project and now I am confident in presenting my work with it. The simplicity and ease of use of the software appeals to me as well as the fact that it creates presentations that have a unique design and feel..

Blinkplan Again, I was new to Blinkplan at the beginning of the course. I used it to create my magazine flat plan to plan out what was going to go on each page. It enabled me to visually see my content design with ease and had the option to add in advert pages as well.

Vlogging My initial proposal was done via a vlog, whereby I presented to the class using Powerpoint and it was filmed and uploaded to Youtube, where I and anyone else in the world who had internet could access it. I had never vlogged before and presenting to a camera was a bit nervewracking but I now feel confident with vlogging in general, speaking to a camera and the concept of uploading to Youtube.

Cincopa Cincopa is a website which allows you to create digital photo albums and then copy/embed them onto other sites – I embedded mine onto my blog. As I had to do five different shoots, it was easy for my photography presentation to get messy on my blog however Cincopa allowed me to present them all in neat albums of which I could simply copy the links and embed them into my blog.