MY FINISHED FRONT COVER AND 3 PAGE DPS

 

 

 

AS Media Production: Final Skills Audit Print Production

Name: Faye Costello          Tutor group:1.35       Date: April 2014

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	Y		I used manual focus on all of my pictures. It meant that I could adjust the focus by hand. It also meant I could get the sharpest photos possible. I used it outside for long distance photos of my model standing a distance away and getting certain things in focus e.g. my model, and certain things out of focus e.g. a tree. It proved to be quiet difficult the first few times as the photos I believed to be in focus were in fact, when looking at them on a computer screen much bigger, were actually still slightly blurry. I got used to it and I got some very crisp photos in the studio for my magazine front cover and DPS.
Shutter Speed	Y		Using shutter speeds was the first thing I did that took a couple of shots to actually understand. I got a model to run along a path, throw leaves in the air, run towards me and jump of a bench and I took a photo of them at different shutter speeds. A slower shutter speed would give the object in the photo moving some motion blur and a fast shutter speed would give a very clear and crisp image. The photos with motion blur would look more active than the ones without. I then tried with a few cars and the result was very different. As the cars were moving much quicker than my model, the car was a blur of colour however the surroundings were completely defined.
Aperture control	Y		Aperture can control the depth of field that is present when taking the photo. On the camera I used it ranged from 3.5 to 22. At 3.5 the camera only makes the objects in the foreground focused and everything else unfocused. At about 9 it makes the foreground and middle in focus and the background out of focus and at 22 everything is in focus. I used this in the classroom taking pictures of a pen on the desk that was in focus but the people sat beyond in the background were out of focus. We then practiced outside with a clock, making the clock and the model in focus but the background trees not.
ISO Control	Y		ISO adjusts the graininess of the pictures which we tried out on some photos outside. You could see the grittiness on the photos especially in the hair, skin and leaves in the photo.
A tripod	Y		I used a tripod in my photo shoot to ensure that the photos were straight which was very important especially for my front cover photo. I also did some filming were I used a tripod which helped for static shots and when panning across scenes or tracking a character. It made the film look more professional as there were less hand movements.
External flash		N
Self timer facility	Y		This feature is one of the only ones I had knowledge on of a camera before as I have used it on my own camera at home when I have wanted to be in the photograph as well as take it. You can set the timer to up to 20 seconds on most cameras and it is most effective when the camera is on a tripod so you don't have to hold it.
Light meter	Y		I used the light meter in the studio for my photo shoot. With it, the lights would go off at the same time the photo was taken as the light meter was connected to the camera. I used it on the main soft boxes to ensure I had bright, shadow less photos.
Composition grids	Y		We used composition grids on the pictures where we wanted to split the photo with several different eye catching features. I used the rule of thirds where a tree would be in the first, a house in the distance in the second and a girl standing close to the camera on the third. I used the grids to place the models in the edge of the grids to see what different ideas for photos I could come up with because my first instinct was to put the model in the centre.

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	Y		I used text control on Photoshop to place my sell lines on my front cover, changing the font, size and colour.
Filters	Y		On Photoshop there were lots of different types of filters. I preferred touching up my photos by adjusting things like the contrast and colour one at a time, but I could have placed a filter on it e.g. coloured pencil and smudge stick however they looked slightly unprofessional and did not suit my article theme.
Brushes	Y		Brushes are quiet useful for placing complicated patterns onto a project. They can be used for a company logo as they are very simple to use as soon as they have been downloaded onto your computer. I used some Christmas trees and snowflakes on a Christmas album front cover. To make the snowflakes look like they were further in the distance all I had to do was make the brush smaller and change the transparency. I could change the colour of the brushes which was helpful to blend or contrast with the background image
Layers	Y		Layers were extremely helpful on Photoshop as they split everything up so I could easily work on my project. If I just wanted to work on the text I could make just the text layers appear on the side bar and vice versa. I could make certain layers disappear so I could work on other layers without things getting in the way. I could put several pictures in as separate layers and swap between them to help me decide which one I wanted for the final product instead of selecting the photos every time.
Opacity control	Y		I used the opacity mainly on the circle break out box on the front cover as it made it look like a sticker, as if you could peel it off, giving some texture and density. I also used it on some of my ellipses to show how the sentences are fading of literally.
Shape creation		N
Brightness and contrast control	Y		I preferred using brightness and contrast to lighten my photos than I did using the filters as they gave a much clearer image and realistic affect. I used them on my DPS main picture to give it a cleaner background. It lightened up my models face and took off the dull tinge off my photographs.
Gradients			I used the gradient tool briefly when I was creating the CD cover. I chose two similar grey colours and made the background go from the light grey circle in the middle to darker and darker grey at the outside. I didn’t use it for the background of my DPS because I was happy with the light colour already.
Load selection features		N
Feathering	Y		I used feathering to blur out the edges of a photo shopped image. It worked well to blend in the edges of a page to make it look like there weren’t strong lines that ended the photo that there was more background either side of my model.
Colour curves adjustment	Y		I used the colour curves adjustment on one of my DPS photos, putting more blue into the photo to give it a sad hue to it that reflected a section of my article. I also used the red curve to highlight the red bricks in one of my photos.
Resolution setting control		N
Magnetic lasso, polygon lasso tool	Y		I used lasso briefly at the beginning of my front cover project but I realised later that it was easier to use the selection tool was much a easier and quicker way to select parts of text and it was neater, therefore I stopped using this tool.
Cropping tool	Y		I used this to crop out the edges of the photos that showed the edges of the studio area. It looked unprofessional so I used the crop tool to remove bits like this.
Clone tool		N
Retouch tool	Y		I used the heal brush tool to remove some spots and hairs on my subjects face, remove some redness on the cheeks and remove a few freckles on her arm. It created a smoother finish that I believed would make my audience want to buy a product more as there were fewer imperfections.
Other skills			I used a slow shutter speeds in a dark room and made drawings and different colour lines in the air with torches.

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?		N
Margin and column guide creation	Y		I copied off the sizes of the margins and columns of my target audiences favourite magazine for my margin and column guides however I found that the columns changed a lot throughout the process of my DPS as I placed photos, break out boxes and quote inserts.
Inserting an image ID	Y		I found this the easiest thing to do on photo shop. I could choose any photo I wanted from my files and place it into a box.
Resizing images in ID	Y		There was a black arrow was used to change the size of the box and moving it around and I used the white arrow to resize or edit the photo inside the box which. There was an image in which the model was holding a Barbie and I only wanted the models face so I resized the image using the white arrow and the image fit perfectly as if it has cropped the image.
Text manipulation – resizing, rotation		N
Text manipulation – controlling kerning and leading		N
Text flow creation	Y		I used this to put my article in separate boxes without having to place the document into each one. I used it every time I have used In Design and it is very simple to do. It works well when I had columns so my text would flow onto the next column.
Using transparent imagery in ID		N
Shape/line creation In design	Y		I created lines to break up my text. I put them in between my columns and to make them suit my target audience I made them dotted which looked neater and modern.
Exporting to PDF from In-design	Y		I exported my final project into PDF. I only did it once, but it was very simple and all my photos were linked so I didn’t have any difficulties.
Text Wrap	Y		I used text wrap around images on the 3rd page of my article and the words flowed around these images neatly. I also used it for quote inserts. The text flowed around the box with the quote insert and I could change how far the words were from the box. If there were any hyphen words after I had used text wrap, I used the hyphen tool which would hyphen or un hyphen words in a text box.
Other Skills	Y		When right clicking an object or text box, you could make it go the back or bring it to the front which I used when putting patterns underneath my text boxes and when I was putting a quote insert in the corner of an image. I used the eyedropper tool, which picked up the colour, font and size of text and changes the selected text to the one that had been selected. This was helpful for my DPS when I wanted the headers of each of my paragraphs identical apart from the actual words.

Number of new skills achieved: 26

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