In making this magazine, I have used various amounts of technology, and different types in different ways. I used software such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign, and various other things. I also used different hardware such as a Mac computer, and 2 types of camera.
The two cameras I used were a Fujifilm Finepix S1500, and a Canon EOS 450D. The Fujifilm is my camera which is a bridge camera between a standard digital compact camera and a digital SLR. I used this camera for my Preliminary task and for some of the music magazine photos. It worked very well, but I felt that I could do better with a better camera, so I borrowed the Canon and the quality of picture was much greater, since it was a Digital SLR, and the camera was still very easy to use. I also used 2 lamps when taking the pictures in the music magazine to make them clearer, and when using the Canon, I used an additional light sensitive flash as well to add an extra light angle, since whenever the flash on the camera would go off, the sensor detected that flash and set the additional flash. The combination of technology that I used, which is the camera (including the camera's superior flash), the 2 lamps and the additional flash provided good quality pictures suitable for the front cover and other pages. To transfer the pictures from the camera to the computer, I used a card reader, where I took the SD card (both cameras used SD cards) out from the camera with the pictures on, put it into the card reader, and inserted the card reader into a USB port, where I could then get the files/pictures from the card onto the computer. This is an example of combining different technologies to overcome a problem.
I used two different types of computer over the course of making my magazine, an Apple Mac computer at school, and a Dell PC at home. I used the Mac mainly when making my magazine since it had all the software I needed, such as Photoshop and InDesign, whereas my PC didn't. I therefore did all the making side of the project on the Mac where I needed the software, but used my PC for other things such as the typing up, and blogging, which I found easier to use on a PC. I felt that if my PC had the right software (Photoshop is £700, and InDesign another similar fee. Too expensive), I would have used it the whole time since I don't like how Macs work and have tried to improve on PCs but in doing so have just made it either more complicated, or just more frustrating to work with.
The software I used for making the magazine itself was Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign, however there were other programmes which helped contribute towards the production of my magazine such as Firefox and Microsoft Word. Both the front cover and the contents page were produced in Photoshop since there was little writing involved and pictures were the main features. Photoshop is also very good for creating titles since it can apply various effects to a word such as drop shadow, stroke and emboss. Most of the production of my front cover and contents was on Photoshop meaning I could edit the pictures I used before I put them into the magazine, For Example: I cut the the background of the picture out leaving just the person using the Magic Wand tool and the Quick Selection tool. This meant I could place just him on the gradient background I made myself. I could also make the picture stand out more by changing the brightness and contrast, making it a much clearer and sharper image; and to make him look at his best, I used the Spot Healing tool which cleared all the imperfections. Various fonts could be taken for free from the site Dafont.com, which has thousands of different fonts, and I was able then to find suitable fonts for my magazine. My double page spread was made primarily made in InDesign, because there was a lot more writing involved, and it takes priority over the pictures in the double page spread article. InDesign firstly splits the page into columns, which already makes it suitable for a double page spread since the writing is normally done in columns in professional magazines, and therefore provides a useful template for my article. InDesign also has other attributes that make it suitable for a double page spread since it has the ability to wrap text around pictures, which gives it a more professional look, since the words form round an invisible contour line round the edges of the picture. InDesign can also create drop-capitals so that the first letter of a word in enlarged, which is another technique used by real media products. However, InDesign wasn't as good for the pictures in the double page spread since the array of options available were shadowed by what was available in Photoshop. Therefore, when it came to editing the pictures and effects, I did it in Photoshop and then moved it into InDesign. This meant that i could have the best of InDesign combines with the editing capabilities of Photoshop.
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