Web 2.0
This media coursework required me to learn how to use many different technologies and software types such as Blogs, Photoshop and Quark Express. All of the work done in the unit is presented on a Blog. Blogs allow the authors to present their posts and allow their content to be read by the blogs readers. At first I wasn’t very comfortable using ‘Blogger’ as I found it difficult however after becoming familiar with it I was able to change my blog to the style I wanted it. Firstly I could change the background of my blog by changing the HTML. By doing this I managed to change the blogs background from a pre-existing one to one created by myself.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0
Adobe Photoshop Elements was a vital necessity in changing my images to make them look more professional and therefore appeal to my target audience more. Also by editing the pictures I could make them appeal to my target audience more as they could be edited to be more representative of my genre. The best example of a use of Photoshop is my front cover picture. The reason this is because it has been converted from colour to black and white and its background has been removed and replaced with a black block colour, by doing this the picture has higher impact. The overall effect made it a lot more suitable for my front cover.
Taking photos was made easier by having this software as I did not relay on getting the ‘perfect picture’ whilst shooting as I knew that I could edit the picture later on however I did strive to achieve the best possible pictures whilst photographing.
The tools that I used the most in Photoshop were the ones such as the ‘Magnetic Lasso’, which made it easier for me to cut out from its background also I used the ’Magic Wand’ selection tool as this also helped to delete unwanted background but I found using this tool less effective than the ‘ Magnetic Lasso’ tool as I had to reduce the tolerance as in some of my pictures the lighting was quite bright and therefore when I was trying to select the shadow I sometimes selected a part of the actors faces. I found that one of my strengths on Photoshop was the use of the ‘Spot Healing Brush’ tool as this allowed me to erase any blemish’s on either of the actors faces and seen as my cover image was in black and white blemishes were more apparent as they appeared darker so it vital that I used this tool.
Another great aspect of Photoshop I learned to use was the ‘Individual Layers’ as each image or each section of text was added onto my front cover it made me more capable to select certain aspects of the front cover and change them without having to change all of the front cover.
The only issue that really arose was that the layers were not named and it therefore made it harder for me to identify between the layers especially seen as I had a lot of shapes used on my front cover. However I simply began to name the layers and this way I was able to distinguish between them.
Quark Xpress
I used Quark Xpress for my double page spread however I automatically felt less confident with it that I had done using Photoshop. Quark is professional publishing software however I did find it a lot harder to use than Photoshop. I found the ‘fit picture to box’ tool the most effective as it meant that my pictures would be the exact size I wanted them and not too small or too large. I also found using the ‘Rotation’ tool very helpful as it allowed to me to rotate my text box and make the pull quotes stand out more.
One weakness that I found with Quark was that it cannot export to Jpeg. It needs to me made into a pdf first and then placed into Photoshop where it can then be exported as a Jpeg.
This media coursework required me to learn how to use many different technologies and software types such as Blogs, Photoshop and Quark Express. All of the work done in the unit is presented on a Blog. Blogs allow the authors to present their posts and allow their content to be read by the blogs readers. At first I wasn’t very comfortable using ‘Blogger’ as I found it difficult however after becoming familiar with it I was able to change my blog to the style I wanted it. Firstly I could change the background of my blog by changing the HTML. By doing this I managed to change the blogs background from a pre-existing one to one created by myself.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0
Adobe Photoshop Elements was a vital necessity in changing my images to make them look more professional and therefore appeal to my target audience more. Also by editing the pictures I could make them appeal to my target audience more as they could be edited to be more representative of my genre. The best example of a use of Photoshop is my front cover picture. The reason this is because it has been converted from colour to black and white and its background has been removed and replaced with a black block colour, by doing this the picture has higher impact. The overall effect made it a lot more suitable for my front cover.
Taking photos was made easier by having this software as I did not relay on getting the ‘perfect picture’ whilst shooting as I knew that I could edit the picture later on however I did strive to achieve the best possible pictures whilst photographing.
The tools that I used the most in Photoshop were the ones such as the ‘Magnetic Lasso’, which made it easier for me to cut out from its background also I used the ’Magic Wand’ selection tool as this also helped to delete unwanted background but I found using this tool less effective than the ‘ Magnetic Lasso’ tool as I had to reduce the tolerance as in some of my pictures the lighting was quite bright and therefore when I was trying to select the shadow I sometimes selected a part of the actors faces. I found that one of my strengths on Photoshop was the use of the ‘Spot Healing Brush’ tool as this allowed me to erase any blemish’s on either of the actors faces and seen as my cover image was in black and white blemishes were more apparent as they appeared darker so it vital that I used this tool.
Another great aspect of Photoshop I learned to use was the ‘Individual Layers’ as each image or each section of text was added onto my front cover it made me more capable to select certain aspects of the front cover and change them without having to change all of the front cover.
The only issue that really arose was that the layers were not named and it therefore made it harder for me to identify between the layers especially seen as I had a lot of shapes used on my front cover. However I simply began to name the layers and this way I was able to distinguish between them.
Quark Xpress
I used Quark Xpress for my double page spread however I automatically felt less confident with it that I had done using Photoshop. Quark is professional publishing software however I did find it a lot harder to use than Photoshop. I found the ‘fit picture to box’ tool the most effective as it meant that my pictures would be the exact size I wanted them and not too small or too large. I also found using the ‘Rotation’ tool very helpful as it allowed to me to rotate my text box and make the pull quotes stand out more.
One weakness that I found with Quark was that it cannot export to Jpeg. It needs to me made into a pdf first and then placed into Photoshop where it can then be exported as a Jpeg.
No comments:
Post a Comment