Evaluation of skills developed over the length of the course

The project I did for my foundation portfolio was to create both a college magazine and a music magazine using my own image and  using  an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new music magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. As well as this I must produce a mock-up of a contents page and a double page spread.

Before coming to Wyke College I had little or no skills in any of the programs or soft wear I used before AS media studies. I had never used Photoshop or any other form of editing/ manipulation soft wear. I had however I could successfully use a camera.

As part of my creative process I firstly analysed existing magazines to grasp theme, colour schemes layout and fonts for a magazine of my music genre, then wrote up an evaluation of the running trends for each front cover, contents page and double page spread. I then posted a reader profile of my target audience to establish styles and interests of the potential buyers of my magazine, by doing this it helped me to create a magazine tailored towards the likes and needs of my audience. An example of this is the aggressive edgy colour scheme and font on my final draft, typically used in indie rock magazine; the main inspiration I took for this was from NME. You can see this and my font is black orange and white, almost identical to the colour scheme of NME as it is associated with the genre. To reach my final draft I went through a series of drafts using different images, font’s colour schemes and layouts. This helped to generate a successful outcome.

Although I had already used Photoshop is our transitional college magazine I didn’t do any editing in that time, I only used the program for layout purposes. As a result I found that as the year progressed I learnt new skills which can be seen throughout my foundation portfolio at AS when compared to the original pulmonary task of the college magazine. I used these skills that I had learnt both from collage and from YouTube tutorials to refine the images I had taken on the Panasonic camera; I did this by using the program Photoshop. An example of this is skin editing, I did this by making 3 copies of the original image. The first copy was so I wasn’t adding any changes to the original background layer. The second copy of the original layer I named ‘Colour’, I then went to blur-> Gaussian blur and reduced the opacity to 2.0. I then changed the name of the third original layer copy to ‘texture’ and subtracted the background. After this I selected the colour layer and selected the duplicate tool and I set the expositor to 14% and began to create a more even skin tone.

I then switched to the texture layer and selected the patch tool. And put a ring around any spots or blemishes and dragged it to a more clear area of skin.

After removing all the blemishes and imperfections I then created two new layers and filled them with 50% grey. I called one dodge and the other burn.

I then highlighted the dodge layer and selected the dodge tool and began by adding highlights to the pupils and the whites of the eyes. Then I began to lighten the bags under the eyes and down the nose and the edges of the face.

Following this I selected the burn layer and using the Burn tool I added back the low lights to the pupils, eye lids, eyebrows, cheek bones and the edge of the forehead near the hair line.

Skin manipulation is essential to all magazines not just music magazines’ the purpose of skin editing is to refine the image and give the subject a more even skin tone as well as get rid of spots and dark circles around the eyes. This gave the image a more professional look and was a necessary feature for my magazine. My set of skills developed throughout the process, after successfully creating an even skin tone I then moved on to hair editing.

Hair editing is processes in which you create a vector mask over the top of a copy of the original photograph, you then use quick selection to select the outline of the hair. Set the settings to soft light and changed the colour; I didn’t make any real drastic changes the colour of the hair in the image as I wanted to keep a more natural appearance. The reason I did this was because I felt it would be more genre appropriate for the artist that featured on my magazine to have darker hair.

Another example of how my set of skills developed throughout my foundation portfolio can be seen on my double page spread. To create my double page spread I have to use the program fireworks. I had never before used fireworks before stating Wyke College but as seen in my portfolio I successfully created a double page spread. I did this by importing the background I had previously created in Photoshop which I then placed in fireworks, after doing so I then set the font so it would be written in columns of three like many magazine articles, I then wrote the article making sure I placed pull quotes in a bolder bigger font throughout. After this I then used the font on the front cover and the contents page to create continuity as it follows the conventions of a magazine.

To conclude my skills have developed throughout the lengthy process of my foundation portfolio  showing how I can both use a range of technology’s to create my final outcome  and show the planning stages I went through in which to get there.