Evaluation - Technologies

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

When creating my magazine, I used different software's to create all my different pieces of work, as well as producing them. The Magazine itself was done on Photoshop, and then I presented my work on websites like Flickr and Blogger (this website). 

I really enjoyed using photoshop, but this was because I found it quite easy to use because I have a similar one at home. However, this photoshop was different and there were various things I struggled with (Just simple things like adjusting the lighting and contrast effects.. because they were different to how i was used too and i was confused). But, I think I wouldn't have enjoyed using photoshop at all if I had had no previous experience using it (Like others in my class). I was struggling with certain things, and this was after 2 or 3 years experience (and me being thought i was used to the program.. clearly not). So, if I had no experience I would have really struggled and would have resulted in a poor final piece. Also, although photoshop is great to work with, it's very time consuming. I'm quite a picky person and I like things to be as I want them, and if the smallest thing is wrong, it's hard to fix without messing up the rest of my work, like erasing small flaws. In general, Photoshop is brilliant software which is available to amateurs as well as professionals. I was so proud of my final magazine once I had finished (especially my double page spread which I used various lighting tricks on photoshop to make 'perfect').

The website Flickr was also another website I used for certain things. I had a lot of problems when using Flickr because, it would allow me to open up my image and then when I went to annotate it, it would let me type up all what i wanted to write, then just cancel the interent whenever I clicked 'save'. This was very annoying and it took me a while to figure out how to get it too stop, which was to use Firefox as opposed to Interent Explorer - which turned out to be very awkward to keep swapping over. But, it got the job done, it let me upload my photos, annotate them and upload them to my blog - which is all I wanted from it. Considering the website is free, I can't really complain... But it would be a lot better if it actually worked on Internet Explorer.

The website I used to present my work on was this website, Blogger. Blogger is a good website for many reasons. Firstly, it's free. It allows to you upload pictures and other things into a blog and write about them, or just write blogs, and with no word limit you can talk as much as you want. However I did have a few problems, sometimes my word spelling checker would work, other times it wouldn't (hence why half of my blogs probably have hundreds of spelling mistakes!). Also, writing blogs was perfectly fine, but when it came to adding a picture, i could either 'right', 'centre' or 'left' it... I couldn't move it where i wanted, which was annoying as quite often it wouldn't go where i want/mess up the text around it. Also, it wouldn't let me have one image on the right and one on the left... They just would go into the centre and underneath each other? So.. that was annoying. Also, when i actually designed my blog, it would let me change  my background and title, etc, but when it came to trying to change my tabs and stuff - it just wouldn't work. In the end i just left them because I got too annoyed trying to get them out of a ugly clump or words above my blog. But for a free blogging site, i can't really complain.. just like Flickr, it does the job and lets me present my work.

I also used my own photoshop at home when i photoshoped the pictures. The photoshop at college didn't seem to have tools like 'tanning' and 'teeth whitening', so I photoshopped all my pictures at home then created my magazine at college, which i thought worked well. I did however learn many new things with the photoshop at college which I was pleased with - Such as moulding text around an image (Like on my double page spread where the text wraps around her shoulder). Learning new skills with photoshop, as well as the ones i already knew, i think was the reason my magazine was such a success. I'm also glad I picked up new photoshop skills as well as blogging.