Aperture and ISO's

These are the photos that i took to demonstrate the different apertures and ISO's as you can see with some of these photos and that they are fully focused and even background objects are in focus however the ones with a lower number aperture have less objects in focus.

Final product progression

My final product went through quite a few drastically different styles and layouts this is what the progression of it looked like 

 To begin with i picked the photo that i thought would make the best front cover, and would set the tone of the the magazine so i went with the one shown above and stuck with it, i made some changes to it in photoshop to make it sharper and to take out any of the imperfections in my models to make them more camera friendly and i positioned it as such. The thought carefully about the composition of my piece as i wanted it to fill up a small space and use perspective well with models of varying distances. The prop that i used was originally there to be the reason for the buttons on the photo and to make it like a  clever little way of advertising a free poster by pretending it was a message, however as you can see later on i scrapped this idea and kept the phone for a narrative purpose. The text was very basic and i tried to keep to a formal text style however i quickly realised it didn't go with the theme of my magazine and it didn't have much impact on the reader. I also figured that i had used too many colours already and hadn't stuck to the three colour rule which effected my piece as i had already used three colours and hadn't even done finished half of the design.
I didn't use many different tools for this part of my unit 3 work as i re-did it quite early on so the most i had done was use the healing tool for the photo, altered the contrast and colour curves of it and used the sharpen tool to make my models more camera friendly.
For the graphics of the magazine i hadn't downloaded any new fonts so i had only created some new layers and inserted some text and changed the sizes and colours. I also inserted some circles of varying sizes for the 'Free Poster Inside' graphic.

 After investing quite a bit of time into my original draft of my front cover i took a  risk and compleltey redid my style and layout because i wasn't happy with my product so i went back onto dafont.com and spent about an hour trying to find the correct style of font that i wanted, ones that would be big enough to fill up space but also were easy enough to read at a distance so they would catch the readers attention. For my fonts i picked 'Bebas Neue' for the headers and sell lines and 'Vintage' for the title both of these were sans serif.
After deciding on my fonts i had to choose what i wanted my colours to be throughout the magazine as i didn't want to make the same mistake as i did last time by not sticking to the three colour room and making it look too complicated and tacky, so i ended up going with black white and yellow/gold the reason for this choice was because i felt like i wanted to have quite a modern feel to my magazine and i took inspiration from an Esquire magazine and saw that the colour scheme went really well with the headers that i was using.
After about a week of feeling as though i had finished my front cover i kept checking back on it and couldn't pick out why but i just wasn't happy with it.
The tools i had used for this were quite simple really i had went to the website dafont.com and downloaded the fonts that i wanted to use, they then instantly became available for me to use on Photoshop, after this i inserted the headlines and sell lines i wanted to use and simply changed the text colours and font sizes and styles. I put a stroke effect on the title of my magazine to make it stand out and look more stylised, i did this by clicking the 'FX' icon in the bottom left of Photoshop ad selected 'stroke' it then came up with an extra window that allowed me to change the thickness and colour of the stroke effect on the fonts.
I went online and searched up barcodes in Google images and picked the most applicable size and then saved it into my pictures, i then went back to my product and opened up the picture that i had saved and dragged it onto my product and re-shaped it to be the appropriate size on my front cover.
For the baseline and skylines i simply created a new layer and created two different coloured rectangles and stretched them to fit the area.

 I realised after about 2 hours of staring at my work that it was the layout of the text and the button that i used wasn't aestectily pleasing also i forgot to put in anything on the baseline and my sell lines were too far apart. So i rectified the situation by moving the headers around so that you could still see my models and the main focal points of the photo with ought being too close together, i then added in an extra circle to the button and created a small line circle to go around it to make it stand out a bit more. The rest of the changes were just small ones such as rotate the text in the button and make the 'WIN' stand out more to attract viewers to it, i also took off the stroke on the text at the skyline and instead of putting a stroke effect on the word 'Exclusive' that was on the base line i simply changed it too white so it emphasised it more subtly.
Now i had finished with creating my front cover.

This was my first idea for my DPS, for this i had taken inspiration from an NME magazine and was very happy with the design of how the text was layed out and i was happy with the title and more so with the kicker however i was unsure of its length.
Looking back on it now i am extremely happy that i later scrapped this idea and changed to a sleeker look because it made inserting images onto it a lot easier and the look improved a substantial amount.
In this draft i figured quite early that i had used too many colours however i was happy with it as i thought it gave it quite a vibrant feel and that it made it stand out more, i also thought it was easy to realise that i was using different colours to represent the most popular social media websites brand colours, however i realised that maybe it wasn't clear enough and just looked as though i wanted to use as many colours as i could making it look tacky.
The tools i used for all this is i had created 6 clear boxes in which i copy and pasted the article that i had written into and used the text flow tool to transfer the text into each box.
For the quote box and title with kicker all i did was create clear boxes typed in what i wanted and used the box fill tool to have add a colour in it.

After deciding to completely re-do my DPS i had to figure out a design i wanted and stick with it, i then had the idea of picking one of my photos and basing my design around so after choosing the one i wanted it quickly came to me to create a big standout headline and strong colours with strong text but quite a simple paragraph design. The picture i chose has a powerful eye line it is centred directly in the centre and i have configured the depth of field so that the gun is out of focus and is centred on my model.

The tools that i used for this was the drop cap tool which just involved me highlighting the letter i wanted to use and increases its drop cap size in the text tab. The other tool i used was picture insert in which i clicked the 'File' tab at the top and then clicked onto the 'Place' option and selected what picture i wanted and then positioned and re-sized my photo accordingly.

After finishing it i went back and did some revisions such as creating a new kicker to something more appropriate and added a quote box on the picture to fill up some space and compliment it. 

After realising that my DPS looked kind of unprofessional and got a few people to look at it from an objective point of view i went back to my previous designs and looked at some of the things that was weak with it, such as the title design and how it just didn't really stand out. So i created a rectangle filled it with my gold colour that i have been using throughout went onto the 'object' tab and clicked the 'conner options' i then proceeded to change the bottom left corner to a more rounded shape to give it some volume and a slick feel to it. After that i inserted another rectangle and did it black stretched it and inserted text on top of it. The text was easy enough i added a stroke effect on some of them and changed the mitre and spacing between the texts to give it a more compressed or stretched out look to it, this filled out more room on the page which gave the page a feeling that more was going on with it and made it look more appealing as it had more depth and less blank spaces in it.

I changed the font styling of my article from 'Minion Pro' to a more simplistic styling of 'Calibri' so it had an extra sense of maturity to it and professionalism. I added in a straight line in between my columns to show off the margins and to give the article a more elegant and slick look to it, i did this by clicking the line tool and placing one then right changing the strokes weight and doing this two more times for the other parts i wanted to do it to. I had enlarged my DPS picture and repositioned it so my models eye line was in the top line and the guns barrel was in the centre this creates an extra feeling of threat for the reader. I had done what i had done earlier for the button on the front page so this wasn't a new skill that i needed to learn. In my final product i had added in sub headers to my articles to divide them up and have little summaries of what the paragraph will be about.

cross processing

This is the picture i used to demonstrate what cross processing is, i chose this photo because it already has nice contrasting colours however they aren't that bright and can be improved, so the first thing that i did was i opened this photo in photoshop and created a new layer.

 I then clicked on the 'image' tab at the top of the page and clicked on adjustments then curves.

 After that this box pops up which lets you adjust the colours by changing the curve of them, to get the most natural look and best effects the preferred curve is something called the 'S' curve which brings out the natural colours the most and still making it looks natural just of a higher quality.

 However with cross processing you can change the specific main colours in the picture so you can bring out the blue colours in the photo more or reduce the reds in the photo drastically. These can have massive changes on the feel and look of a photo.

 This is a what i did to emphasise how you can bring out certain colours so i brought out the greens and blues quite a lot to get this quite turquoise atmosphere in the photo.

Healing brush

 This is my healing brush example, for this i first got my image and opened it up to photoshop, i then created a new layer and selected the healing brush, i choose a brush size that i wanted (50 in this case) and the proceeded to click the 'CMD' key to select an area that i wanted to copy onto another area to clear up the skin, i then did this until the whole image had been improved.

This is my outcome from the healing brush, as you can see there are almost no spots on the whole image and her skin looks clearer.

CD

 To obtain the brushes need to do the my CD i first off went to the website Brusheezy.com, after finding the brush set that i wanted i clicked on the download button which after the file had been downloaded i was directed straight onto Photoshop.

 I opened a new blank document and set the resolution to 11cm x11cm this was to assure the size of my work was roughly the size of what an actual CD cover would be.
After this i then clicked onto the brush tool and clicked the 2nd top left box on the toolbar, this then brought up the brush selection, the brushes that i had downloaded were at the bottom, i chose the ones that i wanted to use and set up a new layer and got to work.

 This is about halfway through my project, i chose different brushes so it didn't look bland i also changed some of the colours to give it a more brighter feel and so it would attract people who were just walking past it.

After this i set up a new layer to add in the text that i was going to insert, i named the band The Wintery Spring as i felt like the colours were quite hot and cold and i thought that the name went well with the design. After placing the text where i wanted it to be i used the 'FX' option on the bottom left of photoshop and clicked the stroke tool, this then allowed me to add an outer rim onto the text which made it stand out from the image which increased the visibility of the text.

Final unit 3 product

This is the outcome of my Final unit 3 product, as you can see from earlier posts it has changed quite drastically from some of the earlier drafts of it, such as the layout on my DPS is completely different as to what i originally had in mind, i decided to make this change as i thought it looked sleeker and the image that i took would then have greater power and effect to it if it had its own page for it as it intimidates the audience reading it, they start feeling uneasy as it is quite a threatening image and the gun is aimed directly at them. The title has kind of a western/ kill bill feel to it, the words that are highlighted red i felt were the most threatening or had the most impact on them so i thought the best idea would be to highlight them with the same red that is o the barrel of the gun.

Final skills audit

AS Media Production: Final Skills Audit Print Production

Name: Jack Cartwright      Tutor group:              Date:

Photographic Skills

Which of the following photographic features/equipment have you used on a camera before:

Feature	Yes	No	Comments if yes – where have you completed this skills and to what level
Manual Focus features	x		The majority of the images that are used in my blog all feature some form of manual focusing, this is when the person taking photo manually changes the focus of the camera by twisting the lens, this can be done to make a picture look crisper or can be done to make things out of focus for specific reasons, maybe if the image is telling a story it can create a larger impact or it could just simply be because it is aesthetically pleasing.
Shutter Speed	x		The image can change dramatically depending on the shutter speed that is used
Aperture control	x		Aperture control is the size of the hole in the lens which allows light to enter in, so the larger the F stop number, the smaller the hole is which in turn is allowing for less light to be let in. This is used to change how much depth of field is used so the image can be controlled more efficentently and it can make the subject of the picture clearer.
ISO Control	x		ISO control is how much the light reacts with the camera and how much you want to limit it; this can change the look of a picture drastically and make it either very bright or very dark.
A tripod	x		A tripod is used for two reasons either you want to take a photo of something that you are featured in and want to set it up and put it on a self timer so that you can walk into the frame and have no one operating the camera, or when you need to keep the camera perfectly steady and at a certain height.
External flash	x		The external flash is used when the natural lighting is too low or you want to create an effect similar to isolating a model so that everything is dark around them yet there face is in perfect focus, this is usually done during broad daylight.
Self timer facility		x	I never used a self timer facility
Light meter		x	I never used the light meter
Composition grids	x		A composition grid is the grid that shows up when taking a photo that helps show where the eye line is and if your photo is centred and in the correct area you want it to be In.

Photoshop Skills

Which of the following features of Photoshop have you used before:

Feature	Yes	No	Comments if yes – where have you completed this skills and to what level
Text control	x		I have used this in Photoshop to create the title and for the sell lines.
Filters	x		I used a black and white filter for a previous draft of my front cover and I also practiced with it on some of my other photos to see what the outcome was.
Brushes	x		I have done used brushes to create a CD cover to demonstrate my skills.
Layers	x		Everything that I have done in Photoshop involves some sort of using layers as they are essential in effectively creating your product and creating any piece of work in Photoshop
Opacity control	x		I used opacity in some of the text that I had done in previous drafts of my front cover as they provided a nice effect however even though I haven’t used it a lot I would still say I was quite skilled at it as it is very easy effect to produce.
Shape creation	x		I used this quite frequently in my images however it was quite subtle one of the ways in which I implemented it into my work is in my final product the bottom right where it mentions the free tickets it has two circles one of low opacity and one with little lines, both were created with the shape creating tool.
Brightness and contrast control	x		In all of the photos that I have used I have increased or decreased both the brightness and contrast of the image this is so I can generate the best looking picture and is a very basic thing to be able to do in Photoshop.
Gradients		x	I haven’t used any gradients in my work
Load selection features		x	I haven’t used the load selection feature
Feathering	x		I have used feathering only subtly though in some of my photos so that the edges can be slightly faded out and that the centre of the image is emphasised more as the centre of attention.
Colour curves adjustment	x		In all of my photos I have adjusted the colour curves however I have only done it slightly so they all still look natural because I didn’t want to ruin my images.
Resolution setting control	x		In all of my images I have started with choosing the correct resolution setting so it fit to the size of the pages that I needed because I didn’t want to have done all of my edits and have to resize it which would then pixelate the image decreasing the look of it.
Magnetic lasso, polygon lasso tool	x		I used the magnetic lasso and polygon lasso tools frequently during my work so that I could select specific areas and quite small parts of the photo so I could accurately change it or morph it into something different.
Cropping tool	x		In all of my photos I have cropped at least something off of the photo, this is because they have either included something I didn’t want in like half a person or someone’s hand and in some cases it was because I wanted a portrait photo but the photo was in landscape and it had to be cropped to fit the style.
Clone tool	x		I used the clone tool to copy shapes to make the process a lot quicker and accurate s that I didn’t have two shapes of different sizes when they needed to be the same.
Retouch tool	x		I have used the retouch tool just slightly to make some of my models look sharper and more defined, also to make them look more camera friendly.
Other skills

In Design Skills

Which of the following features of In Design have you used before:

Feature	Yes	No	Comments if yes – where have you completed this skills and to what level
Have you ever used In design ever before?		x	Before my media lessons I had never used InDesign before
Margin and column guide creation	x		For my final product I had to use margins and columns so I used the guide for this as it helped me make them as accurately as possible and because they made it a lot simpler than it could have been. You can see this as my article uses different columns in the layout of it
Inserting an image ID	x		For my final product I inserted two images into it both of which were from Photoshop, the first was the front cover that I had created which I inserted into a blank space and the other was the photo that I took for my DPS and had edited in Photoshop which was placed on the second page of my DPS.
Resizing images in ID	x		For my final product the image that I had place on the second page of the DPS which I had inserted from Photoshop had to be slightly resized so the model and centre of attention were positing directly in the middle and so that it fit the whole page.
Text manipulation – resizing, rotation	x		I didn’t rotate any text however I did have to resize it for the headline and for some of the quote inserts as I wanted them to stand out from everything else
Text manipulation – controlling kerning and leading		x	I haven’t used text manipulation before.
Text flow creation	x		In my final product text flow creation helped with making it easier and more accessible to transfer text to different boxes when there wasn’t enough room in the box to fit it all in.
Using transparent imagery in ID	x		I had used this but only slightly in a previous draft of my DPS I had a transparent button on one of my pieces of work, it is similar to how it is done in Photoshop
Shape/line creation In design	x		I used this like the transparent imagery only slightly in a previous draft of my DPS and it was just to create a box, which had text in, but I also used it in my final product behind the text of the title of my article.
Exporting to PDF from In-design	x		I had done this twice for my final product once for the front cover and the second was for an image I had took and was using for the second page of my DPS.
Text Wrap	x		This was my main tool that I used for my article to get it to fit in the columns while also avoiding some of the quote inserts so that they didn’t overlap.
Other Skills (drop cap)	x		I had inserted a drop cap at the beginning of my article where they are supposed to go, by doing this I made my product look more professional and to a higher standard.

Number of new skills achieved:  I have learnt 31 new skills since my initial skills assessment

(Compare with your initial skills assessment)