Skills Development Essay:

The foundation portfolio I created consists of a front cover and contents page for a College magazine and the same for a music magazine, however for the music magazine I also created a double page spread. The music magazine I created was the genre of ‘rock’ music and the college magazine was to inform students at Wyke College about what was happening within the college.

Before starting AS media I had no experience as to how to create a magazine and wasn’t aware of the skills needed, however when making my magazines I included all conventions of media after learning them.  The music magazine has a skyline, masthead, sell line, main image, splash, main cover lines, teasing contents and barcode/price/issue.

When I first drafted my college magazine I hadn’t included all of them but had included a few. The mast head however was dull and the main images were not as eye catching as they should have been for a magazine. With the main image on the College magazine I kept it the same and made no adjustments whereas on the music magazine I cut out the picture of Scott off the original background and then placed it onto a different one and increased the size. This is because I became more competent when using photo shop; I had improved on my skills and became more aware of how to produce a magazine and what it should consist of.

With the music magazine I used the quick selection tool to cut out the image of Scott out of the rest of the image so I could place him onto a different background and change the size of the image. I did this on all the images of Scott. On the front cover I placed the image onto a grey background after removing the original background. I was able to delete the background after going around the images of Scott with the quick selection tool. On my draft of the front cover I did not do this (nor with any of the other images of Scott for the contents page and DPS) however it was the first thing I did when creating my final magazine.

I also know how to use other tools on photo shop too, for example the red eye correction tool however I didn’t need to use the red eye correction tool because Scott’s eyes were not red on the picture. I like the colour of his eyes so did not want to change the colour of them because I think leaving them looking dark brown, almost black, makes him look dark and mysterious (especially on the DPS). –if I had changed the colour of his eyes then I don’t think Scott would have looked as good and instead looked slightly odd.

I can also use layer style but because I didn’t edit Scott’s skin or clothing etc. and other than the background I kept the image the same, I did not have many other different layers other than the layers with the text on them. I did copy the original background (unedited images of Scott) so that if I made any mistakes I wouldn’t have ruined the original background and it would be easier to fix. I did the text on separate layers so that I could manoeuvre them around in different ways and adjust them in ways that made the magazine look better, for example; the front cover.

In conclusion, I overall feel that I my skills have improved immensely on photo shop especially when I was unaware as to what it was at the beginning of last year before creating my foundation portfolio. Not only did I not know what photo shop I was also unaware as to what conventions a magazine consisted of or how much thought and planning has to go into the front cover, contents and double page spread. I feel that now if I was asked to create a magazine with a certain genre, that I would be able to competently create one including all conventions and using my skills on photo shop, whether it be a music magazine, college magazine or any others. I am pleased with the progress I have made and feel this past year from doing media has been very rewarding, helping me to create a professional looking magazine that I could see on a shop shelf that may sell.