Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Desk Top Publishing

There are so many different ways to access media, and my college displays a wide range of them. The modes of technology I used were : the 2 softwares – Adobe Photoshop and Quark Express, a Nikon D5000 photographic camera, computer/laptop, audio recorder and a picture editor website called ‘Picnik’.

It has been inspirational creating my product using the softwares Adobe PhotoShop and QuarkXPress. Both softwares allowed me to manipulate images to how I wanted them to look, for example: I used the Blending options to alter the text and make it look attractive on my front cover.

Personally I didn’t learn all too much in terms of creating the magazine within technology as I already had an excellent grasp of Photoshop, but during the process the new programme I was introduced to, that I haven’t seen before, ‘Quark Express’ which we used to create the contents page as well as our double page spreads, I personally didn’t enjoy using Quark as it was very limited in terms of features and found myself creating elements in Photoshop and importing them into Quark. The only useful feature I found was the guide lines within the programme.

I learnt how lighting can alter an entire image, so I experimented using a digital camera, creative photography to capture the best image. I also used my dad’s company ‘Picture This Event Photography’ photo studio to take my photos for my magazine in. here I learnt how to use proper lighting in order to create a professional looking picture.

However, it was the first time that I used QuarkXPress; it was really difficult to use to start but soon enough I felt at ease and my confidence built as I progressed with the software and went on to complete my magazine contents page and double page spread. Quark is the same software used in media professions; I have learnt that I can successfully create a product, using Quark, making it look to be of a professional standard. Also, I found that Quark restricted me when I wanted to resize my images (alter the size of a created shape), but even with this small problem, I managed to design a suitable magazine for my target audience, using the technology and applications I had around me.