Evaluation Question 6

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

There are a variety of different programs and types of technologies I have used throughout this process to try and create my final magazine, but the program I have used the most is Photoshop. Before creating my magazine I had never really used Photoshop and was not that familiar with it and all the tools I had to use to create my magazine. The first time I properly used Photoshop was when I created my preliminary task. However, since then I have improved massively with using Photoshop, which can clearly be seen when you look at my final preliminary magazine and my final music magazine. While using Photoshop I have learnt a variety of different things such as; how to get rid of a background, how to add effects to images and text and also how to use certain tools. It did not take me a long time to understand Photoshop, but it did take me some time to become good at using it. Here is a small presentation demonstrating some of the effects and styles I did in Photoshop which I did not know how to do before I started using Photoshop;

From this slideshow you are able see that I have used some effects which I did not know how to do myself so I had to do some research to find out how to do them. I have not shown how to do the easier effects because most people are able to do them easily anyway and they are quite simple. The effects which I have shown in this slideshow allowed me to make my magazine look different to others as I have created effects which are my own - so no one else's will look like it. On top of that, I have provided before and after pictures of the texts that I used the effects on and I have done this as it allows you to see that there is a difference when the effect has been added, it has been made more appealing to my target audience and it also shows that I have done this process myself and not just found a way to copy it from somewhere or someone else.

There are a mixture of different tools that can be used in Photoshop and I could have used them all, but that would have meant I would have had to spend a lot of time doing research. So instead I just decided to use only the tools I needed and if there was a special effect or something different that I wanted to create and I didn't know what type of tool to use, then I just did some research and looked up the tools that I would only need to use. Here is a small slideshow to present some of the important tools I have used during this process;



By watching this slideshow you will be able to see that there are an array of different tools that can be used in Photoshop, so it would take a long time to learn how to use all of the tools professionally. The tools I have shown in this slideshow are the ones which I did not use a lot but I thought were beneficial and very useful for my magazine because they allowed me to do effects which were my own and which other people would not be able to do unless they did the exact same thing that I did. I think I have used the tools in a unique way because I have used certain tools in the way that they are not meant to be used, which shows that I have used my imagination to create my own things that other people may not be able to do. Again, I have provided before and after pictures to show what the effects I have created have done to my magazine. 

When creating my product I used many different media platforms to present my work. Some examples of the platforms I have used are; Prezi, GoAnimate, Haiku Deck and many more. I was only familiar with a few of the media platforms I had used which was useful because it meant I able to begin my work quickly and I did not need to practice trying to use a certain media platform. I found using different media platforms interesting as I got to learn about a variety of different things and how different things work. I am now extremely confident with all of the media platforms I have used throughout this process and I think I will most likely use them again in the future. A lot of my time was spent on 'Blogger' which is where I have posted all of my work that I have produced and I have also learnt an array of different things on there. I have learnt how to produce a blog and how to lay different things out. One of the features I didn't know was available on blogger was the use of HTML code, I am very familiar with coding which meant I knew how I would be able to add any videos to my blog by embedding the code of the video and coping a pasting it into the HTML section on blogger. 

As I am familiar with technology, I knew that work can sometimes be lost or could accidentally not be saved, so I backed up my work and saved it onto a USB stick which I kept in a safe place so I knew that I wouldn't lose the work I had on it. Every time I continued with my work I saved it on both my computer  'F drive' and also my USB stick so I would always have the latest version of my work in case I ever lost it. On top of that, I always keep my work in organised files so I will easily be able to find the certain piece of work I am looking for and it also means I will spend less time looking for the piece of work that I need.