1. My Use Of Technology

2. Use of Paintshop Pro The deform tool has proved vital in creating my front cover, the ability to rotate objects ,adjust the size of text and even move layers around the page has made my front cover more professional. The ink selector tool has helped me keep consistency on the page by Using exactly the same colours on different pieces of text and banners. It is a small and particular feature but again, has proved vital in the professionalism of my final product. The paint bucket tool was used to fill text. I found Paintshop to be a very manual program but it gave me the option to make the page coincide with notions synonymous with Independent rock. The rectangle/ellipsis tool was used for subheadings to seclude them from the splash and headline. In terms of structure, this makes the page more accessible.

3. Paintshop Pro uses a layer system, which helps to separate images, text and vectors. The ability to label the layers has been a great benefit – as I can save confusion by picking out the strap line for example which is entitled ‘WE DO BRITISH ROCK’. The ‘Materials’ palette on Paintshop Pro has been a great advantage in creating a colour scheme. The layout of colours and the greyscale has allowed me to experiment with colours. The ‘All tools’ button has been ticked which means I have allowed the use of all tools in the repertoire, broadening my range and ability to construct a successful media text.

4. Use of Macromedia Fireworks The first notable feature about the Fireworks toolbar is its complexity in contrast to the Paintshop Pro toolbar which was more basic and direct. If I had time to do my project again, I would have used Fireworks for my front cover as well as my contents page and double page spread – as it is more accessible and broad than that of Paintshop pro. Similarly to Paintshop, Fireworks features the basic tools such as the paintbrush, pencil and paint bucket. All three were used to great effect in the production of my contents page and double page spread. The paint bucket was used for more heavy purpose duty – to fill the page. I used the paintbrush and pencil for more defined use, such as for the edge of boxes to give a shadowed effect. The text box tool was used for the typing up of my journalism and for pull quotes and the headline. Overall, in both Paintshop Pro and Fireworks, the text box tool has been the most important as I feel that I have focused more on lexis and copy than I have on graphics and photography. The Web section of the toolbar allowed me to position my text accurately. As well as this pressing Ctrl + G brings up a grid, allowing text and images to be aligned correctly, thus giving a proffesional feel to the final production.

5. The properties box was used to alter the text’s positioning, formatting, effects and spacing. As seen on the properties toolbar which is taken directly from my double page spread – the drop shadow effect is being used. By clicking the + effects button and choosing drop shadow, you can then choose the percentage of shadow and density of darkness. Similarly to Paintshop Pro, Fireworks uses a layer format through the ‘optimise’ bar. By setting up this format, it made it easier for me to organise my work and adjust the backgrounds, foregrounds and vectors in between. This layers toolbar is taken directly from my double page spread and shows how I have organised my work in layers – with the combination of a bitmap background, bitmap images, text and rectangle shapes as boxes.

6. Installing a Font To download the desired font, I found the font website www.dafont.com . Once I had searched through a selection of fonts, I found 84! Rock. I clicked download, then open and extracted the files to my home server. Once the font had been extracted to my home server, I went on to the control panel and then fonts, and then install a new font to add to the group of default fonts on the computer. Then, from the fonts I had downloaded, I picked out 84! Rock and installed the font to the computer/server’s selection of default fonts. After this, the font was available on the server and could be used as a normal font for usage on Macromedia Fireworks, Microsoft Word and Jasc Paintshop Pro.

7. Using Blogger To keep my work organised and recorded, I used www.blogspot.com , otherwise known as Blogger. This makes my work more accessible and easier to keep under control. This also projects my work in to the 21 st century in a subject which is so relevant to such a revolutionary and modern subject. The ‘edit posts’ section allows me to alter, view and publish posts the way that I want them ordered and how I want my text and images composed on the page. I used blogger consistently instead of a scrapbook or folder alongside it so that my work was all designated in one place, thus making it easy to control myself and easy for my teacher to access either from any computer – making blogger convenient and accessible. My posts from planning to evaluation work were composed through this simple ‘new post’ section. Through this section, I could add images, text, hyperlinks, films and edit fonts and text size to create an aesthetically pleasing and easy-to-read blog.

8. Using Slideshare Slideshare is a file-sharing site which also converts PowerPoint presentations in to a HTML code which can be embedded on www.blogspot.com By using Slideshare , which is argued to be PowerPoint ’s equivalent to youtube , I have been able to present my work in a positive and accessible fashion.