What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I learned various skills some of which were more
crucial to the development of my project than others however I needed to know
each and every one to enable to create a better project, make informed decisions
and make my project as efficiently as possible.
I learned about key design features, lighting, camera skills and even
skills whilst using a variety of different software which was crucial to my
work.
Throughout of my project I took an array of different
pictures however I did not take many inside where I would need to utilize
artificial lighting however when I did I had to learn the basics of using
lighting tools. When I took my very first set of photographs I found that the
colour of the light is crucial along with the angle of it. I made the mistake
of using a blue harsh light however I now know that a softer white light worked
better. I also found that positioning the light to the side shining on to the
face worked well for my models and that different side angles would appear
differently. The information on lighting was not as valuable as I had first
hoped in the end as all of the photographs which I chose to use however the
knowledge of the angle of light helped me to position myself and my models
while I was taking all of the different pictures.
When I started the media A level course I was not used to
manipulating a camera to create the desired effects so I had to learn to master
even the basic skills of a camera to enable my photographs to be off high
quality. Two of the most basic camera skills which I learned where zoom and
focusing. Both were crucial to create photographs that I could use at all.
Although I used the zoom very little I needed it for variety of my photographs
so that the focus was at the centre of the image and as large as it needed to
be. In my early photographs I needed to use zoom to make sure that images which
were of poor quality only included the
areas of the background that I needed to show. I also used an automatic focus
on my camera however before selecting a focus the camera took me through a
variety of different focus points, by holding my shutter button down the
different focus points were shown before I pressed my shutter button all the
way down to select the image focus that I thought was fitting of this image.
Both of these skills enabled me to shape my image so that the focal point was
always the model as I wanted it to be and that background was always
sufficiently blurred and only the important elements were featured.
After I had taking pictures, I needed to
manipulate my images to create a better overall look that was worthy of being
in a magazine. To do this I needed to use Photoshop, to remove blemishes and to
edit dark lines and hairs I used a combination of the stamp tool and the spot
remover tool. The stamp tool needed the user to select an area to be copying
from and for this reason was more exact whereas the spot remover tool would
chose an area to copy by itself. I found that the spot remover tool was better
for when I did not know where the best match would be however as a whole the
stamp tool was the better tool. The stamp tool is most likely the most
important Photoshop tool that I learned about and used.
The lasso and magic wand tool were both also
vital to the development of the images as without them I would not have been able to apply many of the effects
I did such as changing colour lightness and changing saturation levels. The
lasso was a tool that I could use to select an area manually whereas the magic
wand selected areas of similar colours by itself. I often used a combination of
both so that the magic wand made the process quicker while the lasso tool
enabled me to be as precise as I wanted when I was selecting colours and
images. The lasso tool was an incredibly important and useful skill to learn
while I was using Photoshop as it meant I could select any area without great
difficulty.
In many of my pictures the background was too
bright and held to many different colors for me to be able to place writing
over the top, so in order to be able to use the photographs I needed to change
this. I did it by darkening or lightening this background, I started by using the lasso to select the area
and I then edited the light/dark levels
so that the area was now darker or lighter than before. This also made my
models stand out against the crowd in pictures as well as enabling writing and
images to be clearly seen over this excess background space.
Another tool I used to
enable me to see the background was the gradient tool as this would put a light
transparent colour over the background therefore any writing on top would have
been in a contrasting colour and easily seen. After selecting an area with the
lasso or magic wand tools, I would create a gradient by selecting a colour,
transparency and how thick it should be at its height. I then drew in the
gradient by drawing one line in the direction of the gradient I wanted to
create. The gradient tool does not feature in my final work therefore the time
spent learning it may have been wasted however I still believe implementing the
gradients was a key part of the development of all my pieces.
Blogger was software which I had to learn to
manage in order to succeed within this project. I found Blogger hard to use and
difficult to manipulate so in order to complete my project to a high standard I
had to learn how to use Blogger. One technique that I used in order to put work
on my blog was to create all my work on PowerPoint first before transferring it
onto the blog. I would type out all the text I wished to use and then paste the
images I wanted to incorporate, I also cropped the images on PowerPoint as I
realized that when I cropped in word, saved then tried to move it across the
original picture was still shown. After I set up the work, I would copy the
text and then paste it as plain text so that abided by the page’s text settings
and not the previous settings, I would also save the images as a jpeg and then
insert them as well. This all meant that text and images I inputted were
presented as I wanted them to be. Overall, this method was helpful and fitted
the task well, putting things on the blog took longer due to this process
meaning it may not have been as efficient as possible however this method still
did what I needed it to do.
Another issue I encountered with Blogger is the
fact that the order the posts were in was by last large edit and not creation
so posts on different things such as the task front cover and contents page
would be amongst each other. To solve this I learnt about labels, I was able to
label each post with a variety of different categories such as contents page,
final piece, research and preliminary task. I then added in a labels section on
to the face of my blog site so that the links could be clicked and the needed
posts would be shown without having to look to hard to find. This made my blog
much easier to navigate and enabled my teachers and myself to use my blog with
little effort.
The most important feature that I learned to use
on InDesign was the character tool box; I used InDesign primarily to create
text on my work so this tool box which enabled me to manipulate the text was
important to creating a good project. I was able to use the spacing, size,
width, height, font and even make it italic using this tool box. Every single
font I featured I had to manipulate using this box to create the final product
that I wanted, this could be argued to be the most important thing I learnt
throughout the project as without it my work would not be to the standard it
currently is.
The eye dropper tool on InDesign was also key to
the creation of my project; a key design skill is the ability to match the
colours throughout your work so there is continuity. I learned that the eye
dropper tool could pick up any colour from the photograph and then enabled me
to place it in the swatches tool box therefore enabling me to change the colour
of any shape or text. The use of this tool created continuity throughout my
work which enabled me to create final pieces which looked professional.
Overall, the fact that I learned all these key
skills was imperative to my work and the development of it. InDesign, Photoshop
and Blogger may have been difficult software’s to master however without
knowing how to use them as well as I now do I would not have achieved half of
the things I have achieved within my project now.
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