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

As a previous GCSE media student I had already developed a range of skills through the different technology forms that I used during this process, however, through this process I learnt about new technologies such as blogger and a range of presenting my information.

Pixlr

During this process I refined my skills. I used Pixlr to edit my music magazine. Through previous use, I had found that it provided professional editing techniques that I could use to improve my magazine. For example, I used the ‘heal’ setting to remove any imperfections on my music magazine. This was an important stage to creating my magazine because professional magazines are typically airbrushed and ‘flawless’.  As well as ‘heal’ I used the enhancing settings available on Pixlr to brighten my image and increase the contrast to make the image more striking. This made my magazine more advanced as, through research, I found that a convention of magazines was a striking, eye catching images. Because I was familiar with Pixlr I did not learn new skills but instead refined my own to create a more professional magazine. I think that my use of these features was successful as it made my magazine cleaner and therefore more appealing to my ‘aspirers’ target audience.

Figure 1 - First attempt at editing out knees 

To create my double page spread I used a combination of Pixlr and Pages. I used one image as my double page spread which I edited through Pixlr. This image originally showed the models knees, I had done this because ripped jeans are a current fashion trend, however when finalising my image, I thought that the knees were distracting and so I had to remove them. Firstly, I attempted to heal the knees out but due to the amount of exposed skin the retouch looked extremely unprofessional (see figure 1).  Therefore, I had to reconsider my approach to amending this issue. For the final image I downloaded a black square which I super imposed onto my image, this covered the knees, I then healed around the square to create the elusion that the jeans were seamless. (see figure 2).

Figure 2 - Final image 

I feel that this was a successful way of overcoming the issue, however, I feel that Pixlr still limited my editing. For example, the Pixlr app in which I was using did not have an airbrush option that would have benefitted me throughout constructing my magazine and creating a more professional piece.

Blogger 

Before starting this process, I had not come across Blogger. I learnt how to publish and organise my blog (by creating headings) in order to make it easier to read. This process taught me that there are a range of ways in which to publish your product. I found that I enjoyed the process of being able to easily present my magazine and comment on it in one format.

Figure 3 - Evidence of organising blogger into sections. 

I was able to successful grasp the concept of blogger and overcame issues that the program presented. For example, on of my evaluation videos would not upload due to the capacity of the video. To overcome this, I created a YouTube account to which I added the video and inserted the link so that the video could be viewed.

Movie Maker 

Furthermore, when composing my evaluation video I used ‘movie maker’, a program that I had not used before. I had to use an effect to deepen my voice. When creating the video I was the voice for both the voice over and Jessica’s thoughts, therefore to distinguish between the separate sections, I used an effect to deepen my voice and make it sound like a different person.

In conclusion I feel that I was successful in using all the technologies that were present during the production of my music magazine. Because I was already familiar with editing programs I didn’t learn new editing techniques that I could apply to my magazine production, however, I was able to develop my skills and overcome the issues that I faced.