Jay Franks

Evaluation 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task (the school magazine task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Jay Franks

Mise en scene and camera work :

Looking back at my preliminary task, it shows great improvement has been made to my final magazine. I have learnt that Mise en scene has a great impact on a photo. The impact of lighting is really crucial. Changing the lighting impacts the image drastically, I tried taking images with one lamp shade on, two lamp shades on to see the effect this had on the image. As it was my aim to prevent any shadows that could possibly occur in the photo shoot. Another thing I learn was how influential the closeness of the shot had on the sizing of the image on Photoshop. This shows from my draft as that image was taken from a fairly far away distance and he appeared to be quite small on the page and produced blank space on the magazine cover. Therefore, I realised if I stand closer then he will still fit in the page and that the blank space would be filled from the type of pose he is pursing. This results in the page looking more full and more professional. Another thing I leant that having the flash on the camera can change the quality of the image. I decided to have the flash on as I felt the image looked of a better quality. Moreover, clothing and accessories was another element I learnt from the time from my draft to the final product. As different accessories have an effect on a photo. Using the shades looked better than without the shades for the front cover photo as well as using the beats instead of the earphones. However, the beats didn’t work as well for the image on the contents page as it was harder for him to get the same pose as it resulted in his elbow being too far way from his body making it not fit correctly for the size I wanted.

Text arrangement and editing:

From my preliminary to my final version the text arrangement changed massively. I learned through the text arrangement and layout, that slight adjustments are required to be made to ensure that everything is perfectly aligned and the gaps were equal. For my double page spread however, I realised that the article looked untidy and not professional. Therefore I applied the alignment that made all the columns perfectly square. This resulted in the page looking much more neat and professional. This is the intention of the magazine, and was what I learned from in this page that the layout can have a huge difference on the look of a page. As I tried changing my contents page also into a three column design instead of two, but I felt this didn’t look as good as the two column design so I didn’t change it. This is on the change from my draft to the final version as a preliminary double page spread wasn’t made as we were instructed not to. For the editing aspect, I have learnt a lot since my preliminary design. I realised how to use all the Photoshop features of photo editing, and I played around with this until I felt I found the colour that suited the magazine genre. Also, tools such as colour picker, spot removal, paint brush allowed me to edit the photos on the software to a good standard. Allowing me to edit the photos so that looked the best they could be. I learnt how to use them really efficiently by the end of the process of making my magazine.

Precision:

Looking back from my preliminary task, I have definitely enhanced my skills of becoming precise in the design of the design for the magazine. As I have learnt that one slight mistake has a huge impact on the whole magazine. For example, there were a few spelling mistakes in my magazine, I made sure I corrected these as an spelling mistake in a magazine straight away gives of the intention that it is unprofessional and not well designed. This is not what I wanted from my magazine. I learnt how to design it better with

Jay Franks

precision also, through the use of the ruler’s tool it allowed me to really design it perfectly and that everything was aligned. It enables me to count the space in cm between something and then I could replicate that on the other. I did this on my title for example as I wanted it to be perfectly central. An example of where I have become more precise is the quality in my images, for the preliminary there is a slight grey outline around my models hair on the preliminary work, I made sure that little aspects like this wasn’t visible on my final product to make it more professional. From the time from my preliminary to the final product, I learnt that the spot remover tool is really useful for sharpening up the appearance of my models as well as being able to prevent the reflection of myself taking the photos in the reflection of the glasses I was able to edit this with this tool and allow this to be edited out as well as still having the reflection glare making it a realistic image. I learnt that this was really useful and it was could for pursuing this editing task.