1. Question Six: What have you learntabouttechnologies from the
process of constructing the product?
At the beginning of the first term, I have never been used nearly all the equipment or
software before : Canon DSLR camera, Photoshop and InDesign. During the construction
of my magazine, we need to take our own photos. We had a short tutorial that talked about
the essential skills of using the Canon DSLR camera in lesson, and I borrowed one from
college. Before photo shooting, I created ‘Risk Assessment’ and ‘Call Sheet’, which is
listed the risk might happen during shooting and the place, the clothing and props you
needed respectively. The only problem for me of using the Canon camera is that changing
the sensitometry depends on different lighting occasion. I used the alternative settings on
the camera, which means that it will change the lightness of the image if the environment
is bright or dark. However, half of the images have the lack of lighting. To make sure that
the images that I have took can be used, I used my smart phones to take it again as a
copy.
To follow the real media convention, we need to edit the images in Photoshop first. I only
know the some of the essential tools in Photoshop, such as type tool and shape tool,
which is one of the weakest point in my personal review. We have Apple Macs in the
classroom and we can use it for constructing or doing research in lesson time. Also, each
student has a hand out of some simple ways to improve our images from our teacher, and
there are also some useful tutorial videos on the tutor blog as well as online. These
methods are all teach you step by step, which is clear and effective. In order to develop my
Photoshop skills, I downloaded both Photoshop and InDesign onto my MacBook,
therefore, I can practise and try new skills on my own time, which save my time a lot at the
beginning stage of construction. I opened my Pinterest account to help me collect ideas as
well as sae the useful or advantage skills in Photoshop. By using Pinterest, I found the
way to improve the lighting of my images, which is go to ‘Image’ - ‘Adjustment’ - ‘Curves’
by changing the shape of the curve to create high key lighting or create shadowing. I also
leant how to create effects on image, such as Drop Shadow, Inner and Outer Shadow
and Stroke. Another beneficial tools is the clone tool. I used this tool to improve the edge
of image after using the ‘Magnetic Lasso Tool’. I feel Photoshop works best on Mac
computer, which is smart and alternative with good results. It helps me create small details
such as the price on the barcode and page number, also, after editing, I feel the quality of
my images have been improved. Now, I’m quite confident with both Photoshop and Macs,
and I’m pleased with how much I know in Photoshop as well as InDesign. I never used
InDesign before, and this is a professional software for publishing product such as
magazines, newspapers etc. This desk software is similar to Photoshop as creates layers
to represent stuffs, however, it can create columns which makes the texts in both contents
and double page easier to read. With InDesign, I learnt how to use ‘Text Wrap’ which
makes the texts goes around the image, following the creation and convention of other
similar products. When I construct my double page, I met a problem that the texts will
disappear when I placed the onto the main image with ‘Text Wrap’ effect on it. I tackle this
problem by watching an online tutorial, I followed it step by step then find in ‘Object’ - ‘Text

2. Frame Options’, at the bottom there is a box, you need to tick it, which is for ignoring the
text wrap, then the texts will appear above my main image.