Photoshop Practices

These images help highlight and show the creation and construction stages of my music magazine, I used many tools in both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign. For example some tools I used in the creation of my final designs include using different layers, the magic wand tool to remove backgrounds from pictures and also text tool to input text onto my images and I experimented with different fonts and orientations and gaps between the letters.

The image above shows me cleaning and editing the background behind my model George Martin, this is a very easy process as I only need to use the brush tool and colour in (with the white colour selected) the pixels and the areas where grey was shown. 

The image above shows me moving a text box with different rapper's names and moving it to the top of my magazine to the header, this is a very easy tool to use as I only had to select the 'T' tool in the tool menu on the left hand side of the application and then dragging with the mouse tool to my desired location for the text.

The image above shows my model Sam Crummey staring straight into the camera whilst being in gray scale and his eyes and lips being colourful. The use of direct mode of address highlights the concentration and appeals to the text receiver as this makes them feel engaged and to question themselves due to eye contact being used. However to create the colourful lips and eyes I had to use the magic wand tool and highlight the area of his eyes and lips that I wanted to use, after that I paste both of the images onto different layers but also made sure that they are on top of the background layer; so that both colourful images would show on the gray scale picture. But also to make the image a gray-scale image I easily navigated to the image button on tool bar and then clicked gray-scale. In my opinion the gray-scale easily accommodates my music magazine genre due to rap magazine usually creating dark and serious layout. 

In this picture I began using different types of fonts that would accommodate and suit my music magazine, this means I would explore and observe many different fonts that will look the most appealing to my music magazine target audience. I also wanted to find a font that would make my double page spread look very professional and structured.

After gaining feedback from the different people I have interviewed I have completely changed the layout and design of my contents page, for example I changed the order of the numbers for the pages instead of only having 1 to 6. Now I have a wider and bigger range of numbers. The use of these numbers makes my music magazine become more professional looking and have a cleaner design, but also makes my magazine look like a real magazine with a lot of pages instead of just 9. I made my main image on the contents page big because I wanted to show dominance and seriousness in my model's character, but also the use of a big image help create an atmosphere for the text receiver but also helps create emotions for the text receiver also. 

My double page spread received the most attention from my interviewees as I have been experimenting and altering the different layouts and colour scheme that the page follows, in this case in my construction of my double page spread I just left the background as white. However I acted upon my feedback from both my teacher and interviewees and changed the atmosphere and colour that my double page spread created. 

This screenshot was given to my interviewees and was praised and received the best feedback  out of all my designs and drafts, in my opinion the double page spread was given a lot more emphasis and detail such as adding small image of the rapper 'Jay-E' but also adding a big sized name side heading just below the big picture of the rapper. But also I added a big letter to start of the article so that the text receiver will easily understand where to start reading. 

In this image I have began to develop and create my story of an upcoming rapper by the name of Jay-E, I further discuss about his rise to fame and his personal life and goals, the story that I have created would accommodate the image shown due to describing his living conditions before becoming an artist as disgusting. The use of this helps the text receiver to feel pity for Jay-E due to discussing his childhood and upbringing, but also the use of my story makes the text receiver become more engaged due to exaggerated speech or hyperbole.