Magazine Test Run - Photoshop Basics

This is a tester magazine that I created to understand the basics of using Photoshop.

Firstly, to get started you have to open up Photoshop and once you have done that, you click on ‘File- New’ For the Preset, you have to click on International Paper and select ‘OK’ this will give you your A4 page. To make sure that everything that you put on the page is aligned and neatly done, you will have to set up rulers. In order to do this you have to make sure that the cursor turns black when on the ruler on the left hand side of the page, then click and drag to the white page around 1 cm in. Do that for all 4 sides of the page. For an average size of the page, it has to be 16.7% but depending on yourself that can change. Make sure to save the file.

After I done that, I started to create the magazine that is featured above. To get the background image, I went on Google and selected an image and then saved it. On Photoshop, you have to go to ‘File’ and select ‘Open’ once you have selected your picture it will come up in another screen, if you minimize that screen, an then drag the image to the Photoshop plain page it will make the image appear.  To resize the image, you will have to press ‘CTRL+T’ this will locate a box around the image which then you can resize. Make sure that you hold the shift key down when resizing otherwise the image will pixilate. To add the Masthead, you have to select the ‘T’ tool and then draw on your text box, if you want the text behind the writing you will have to select the ‘Rubber tool’ and erase away any unnecessary writing, but resizing the rubber. One you are satisfied, you will then have to press another tool, it can be the ‘Moving Tool’ (The first one on Photoshop) and a message will come up which you will have to press ‘Allow’ this secures your writing or image in place. To create Teasers, you will have to select the ‘T’ too again. By adding images and different types of text you are creating new layers. In order to move to another layer you will have to double click on it. The layer that you are working on will be highlighted dark blue on the bottom right hand side of your screen. If the layer has a lock symbol on it, you will have to double click the lock so that you can work on the layer. If you want a background colour, you have to click on the ‘Bucket tool’ and then select a colour from the top right hand side of the page. Once you are happy with your work, you can then save it.

Magazine

Evaluation:

My task was to create an article for a magazine of my choice, however what the article was about was provided for me. The article had to consist of information regarding illegal music downloading/file sharing. Within this article I had to provide two different points of view, statistics, my personal opinion, and artist’s viewpoints. I decided to write for Vibe Music Magazine as I thought that it would be suitable. Vibe Music Magazine focuses on the rap and hip-pop music scene and the artists. I decided that I wanted to write against illegal music downloading.

I first asked my friends around me what they thought about illegal music downloading. Whether they were for or against it. Many of my peers were for illegal downloading, they said that they didn’t really mind downloading music illegal as long as they received it within spending too much time. I went on to a search engine ‘Google’ and decided to look up some statistics on illegal music downloading. That was my first step. I managed to gather some useful information. The main websites that I visited where to The Guardian, BBC News, and Wikipedia. The strong point from this information was that most of it was reliable however, the information from Wikipedia was unreliable because I didn’t know how much or it was true or false. Nevertheless, I still included it within my work.

I decided to keep my written work formal. It isn’t hard to understand and can be read by many genres. Even though I’m writing for an urban music magazine, I know that my article would be read within difficulty. My article had to be approx. 400 words. But I exceeded over 500. My article is fairly short, and I have included some rhetorical questions to make the audience and reader think about what they are doing. I wanted to include artist’s viewpoints. The main artist that I spoke about was Eminem. He is against illegal music downloading, I found that his views similarly backed up my own so I wanted to outline him as clearly as possible. The picture that I used on my article was of Eminem on the left page and it filled up the whole page with a quote from himself. Without reading the article and just looking at the left page, the reader can tell who I will be speaking about, what I will be speaking about, and what side I’m on. I wanted to include a catchy and smart headline, something memorable. ‘Illegal Music Downloading- Right? Or Rightfully Wrong?’ This clearly states that I’ against it. ‘Rightfully Wrong’ underlines what this is about. The image that I chose of Eminem had a colour scheme of grey and black. I wanted my background colour to be black as it went well with the picture and the whole look of the magazine.

InDesign was a new program to me and this is the first time I used it. I learnt many skills whilst creating my magazine article. The following skills are just a few: the rectangle tool to create a background colour, how to create a textbox with the ‘T’ tool, Clicking on ‘Fill Content’ to fill the page with the image and ‘Fill Frame’ to make the image fit into a frame, I also learnt that the yellow and green lines means that the text boxes and pictures are in line with each other. The strengths of using InDesign was that it is very easy to use however one weakness which I came across was the way an image is places. My image was big, and if I changed it would pixilate, I had minor difficulties with that but I was able to sort it out.  If I were to professionally publish this article I would like it to be hand held in a real magazine however due to the audience of Vibe Magazine I know that they are teenagers and very up to date, so due to that I would publish it online so it would be easily accessible. You could read it anywhere and any place.

Audience feedback was useful to me as it told me how I could improve if I were to create another magazine. The feedback I received was mainly good which boosted my confidence on maybe creating another one. If I were to set myself 4 targets, I would say 1) Maybe choose my image wisely. 2) make sure that I stay within the word limit. 3) Brush up my skills on InDesign, and 4) improve on my research skills.

 

Production schedule