Evaluation: Task 6

Websites: and the internet in general, being always connected to the internet meant that if i had a sudden rush of insperation i could look it up using something like http://www.google.com/ and then even post it to my blog.

Blogger: This was the most important website I used in creating my magazine, this was where I posted all of my work and progress to share for the class and teacher to see, with blogger you can include images, sound and videos in your posts along with other things that you can embed. I didn’t find using the website was a big problems as I had a blog with blogger previously so all the basic features I knew how to use. The problem came when I needed to change the date or time a post was posted but as an increased my posts and the use of changing the date became more frequent I soon learnt how to do it effectively.

Sribd: This is a useful website that I used in conjunction with my blog, this website allowed me to upload a word document I had created and then gave me an embedding code I then would put on my blog, and it was very useful in saving time. With anything there were problems with the uploading, if I was to upload a document with tables or images in then commonly they would move around and cover the text so I found in the end it was just as easy to put images on the blog when I needed text and images side by side.

Slideshare: This was similar to Sribd in that it let me upload a document from my computer and then embed it to a post but unlike it using a Word document it took a PowerPoint document.

Software:

Photoshop: For creating the magazine I only used one piece of software Photoshop, this is primarily an image manipulation programme so the obvious choice when it came to editing the photos. It has a vast range of tool which meant I could do things like cut out a person from the background to changing the colouring on a piece of clothing or the vibrancy of face colour. It also uses layers which mean that you can place things on top of each other and edit them independently. I had used Photoshop a little before but only to manipulate photos the first chance I came across to make anything like a magazine was in our preliminary task which only took a couple of lessons to complete so I was worried when it came to adding texts to the page however looking at my final magazine I feel that I got the hand of this. Another good thing came when finally saving my finished item you could save it as a JPEG file which meant it could easily be sent and printed as well as been put on my blog.

Equipment:

Camera: For taking the photos i used a Sony NEX-5 camera with a 18-55mm lens, i used a DSLR rather than a point and shoot style as it gave me more control over the shutter speed which i needed when taking the photos with the fire, I did use a point and shoot on my prelim but I felt when it came to editing them I should use a camera that had a better picture quality. I didn’t have many problems with this but one that I did come across is that the flash that came with the camera was poor and therefore I had to use an extra light to brighten up the scene.

Tripod: I attached the camera to a Velbon Stratos 480 tripod so i could keep the photos straight in and reduce shake from my hand it also meant i could keep the camera in the same position whilst i sorted out my models

Laptop: I used this for everything, because it had Photoshop already on it meant that I could use it in school to edit them at home and because I brought it in school it meant that I could maximise my time and carry on with work in free periods. Because I was using a MacBook Pro there was very little delay in opening and editing on Photoshop which reduced the waiting around time.