Christmas CD Cover

To make my christmas CD cover, I first went to brusheezy.com and downloaded a set of christmassy brushes and then to load them into photoshop I clicked the brush tool and clicked 'load brushes' and selected my downloaded christmas brushes. With my blank document set up (12cmx12cm) I placed the brushed around the page. I found a christmassy image online of my favourite band and cut out the background of the image using the polygon lasso tool. This image was on a new layer so I was able to put an outer glow on it. Next I found an image online of the logo and pasted it into the CD cover. I reduced the size of the brushes by pressing '[' and filled the logo with more brushes. To ensure the brushes didn't spill over, I had the logo selected so that the brush would stay within the logo only.
Using the text tool on a new layer, I added 'Christmas Hits' to my CD cover and I added an outer glow to that too.

Cross Processing

Before

After

























These are before and after pictures of a cross processing experiment. First of all I made a new curves layer and adjusted the red channels by making a gentle 'S' in the curve. This darkened the shadows and brightened the red channels highlights. I then selected the blue channel and adjusted it slightly, which took the blue out of the highlights and blocked out any blue in the shadows. With the green channel I made another 'S' shape which adjusted the contrast. By clicking the 'create new fill or new adjustment layer' I chose solid layer and added a yellow colour cast.

Shutter Speed Experiment

 We set the shutter speed to 5" and went somewhere where there wasn't much light then flashed a torch towards the camera. Because the shutter speed was slow, we could draw pictures in the air and they showed up on the final image.

On this photo the shutter speed is at 8" which allowed us to capture even more of the light's motion.

I think that both of these images would have looked better if we were in an even darker room.

Shutter Speed

First of all we set the shutter speed to 1/4000" which made the image dark because it didn't have time to get enough light.

When the camera was set to 30" there was far too much light which made the photo look like this.










Setting the camera speed to 1" whilst taking a picture of someone spinning on a chair makes the image very blurry and there is too much motion.





















Setting the shutter speed to 0.5" still doesn't capture a clear image, it is clear that the image is still blurry but it is an improvement on the last shutter speed setting.

This is on 1/500" which has captured the movement of jumping off a wall without the image being blurred.

This is also shot at 1/500" and is a correct shutter speed for someone running.












                                                                                                                   

 When the shutter speed is at 1/13" you can see how the picture becomes blurred and unclear, this is because the shutter has been left open too long and there has been too much motion to capture.









The shutter speed for someone walking is usually 1/250" as shown on this image.

 

Having the shutter speed at 1/250" has also captured the movement of leaves being thrown in the air quite well, however looking back on them, I think a slightly faster shutter speed would have made better results with these pictures.

When taking a picture of running towards a camera, I used the shutter speed of 1/500".

Photographic Manipulation - Post Production Work

 This is my original image, it looks quite washed out and I don't think it looks as detailed as it could be, it needed a few adjustments.

 First of all I used Auto Contrast, Auto Colour and Auto contrast. Already there is more detail and the contrast looks much better.

This is the photo after I sharpened it. I used Unsharp Mask  and it defines the details of the image, for example her eyes.

 This is the photo after I adjusted the brightness and contrast. It gives the photo a lot more depth and makes the model look a lot less washed out in the picture.

Using the dodge and burn tool I darkened parts of the image and made other parts brighter. This took away emphasis on some of the less important parts of the image like some of the brighter leaves towards the bottom of the image.

Composition Skills Development

The use of lines in photos lead the viewers eye to the subject/focal point of the image.













Tilt down shots make the subject look inferior because the
camera is looking down on them.





















Tilt up shots make the subject look superior and makes them look like they have more power.

A big close up shot is good for showing the emotion of a character or showing the significance of a character.












Medium shots are good for showing a character and their surroundings evenly.






















                                                                       
This is a side lit shot, it is the lighting that is used most when taking photos of people. The light creates shadows and brings out features in the face.

Induction Evaluation

The first piece of work I have completed for AS Media production is the magazine cover above.  I learned new skills in photography and Photoshop in order to complete this cover.

I had never used an SLR camera before taking these pictures so I learned a lot of new photography skills. I put the focus setting to manual then focused my image by turning the ring on the camera until the subject became focused. My first image was not in focus at all but I made it in focus by adjusting the ring. I have learned that the t-stance is important whilst taking images as your body is acting as a tripod, therefore I was in a comfortable and correct position to take my photos. When taking a picture I learned that it must be portrait for the magazine cover to work as the front cover of a magazine is always portrait. I made sure I tried to have the eye line in the upper part of the frame in order to follow the rule of thirds. On a few of my pictures I didn't use the rule of thirds and the photos didn't look like they were taken very well. When choosing a background I wanted something that wouldn't distract away from the subject so I chose trees and also used a wall for some of the shots I didn't use for my actual cover. Below are two pictures. On one of them the subject isn't central so I didn't want to use this for the front cover because I wanted the subject in the middle. The other photograph wasn't good enough because the rule of thirds wasn't used therefore the subject is too far down in the frame.

I opened up the picture I wanted to use on Photoshop and put it onto an A4 document. I used the text tool to create my masthead and I used a font that was bold and easy to read because if it was on a shelf in a shop, customers would need to be able to read it easily. To choose the colour of my masthead I used the coulour picker and picked out a colour from the clothes that the subject was wearing. I did this so that the colours of the image and the text would match. I double clicked my text layer which enabled me to look at the different effects I could have on the layer and I put in a drop shadow to add a bit of depth to the text and I also put on a gradient overlay so that it wasn’t all just one colour. I also put a slight bevel and emboss effect on the masthead to make it look slightly 3D.

I put my sell lines onto the page and I didn’t put much thought into the font style at all, if I was to do this magazine again I would choose a different font because I don’t really like the one I used here. I would also change the leading as the lines are quite spaced out, whereas on a real magazine they would be closer together.

I used the elipse tool to create the circle on the left of the page. I held down ‘shift’ as I was making this to keep it a perfect circle. I placed the reward sell line in the circle because I think that readers of the magazine will be drawn to the circle and the ‘Win’ that is in a different colour. To rotate the word ‘Win’ I pressed ‘cmd’ & ‘t’ to ‘transform’. I used the rectangle tool to do the same for the middle sell line. On all of my sell lines I used a drop shadow to make them stand out a bit more.

If I were to do this again I would probably download some new fonts for my magazine as I didn’t put much thought into the fonts used on the cover. I think the cover has the right amount of colours used as I think more than three would be too many. Cutting out images and putting them on the cover isn’t something I did on this cover but I think it would make it look more professional and so would things like a barcode, price and issue number and/or date.

Overall I have learned a lot of new skills by making this front cover and I now know ways to make future magazine covers look much better than this one.

AS Media Production: Technical Skills Audit Print Production

Name: Megan Howard                         Tutor group: 1.03               

Date: 18^th September 2013

Photographic Skills

Which of the following photographic features/equipment have you used on a camera before:

Feature	Yes	No	Comments if yes – where have you completed this skills and to what level
Manual Focus features Creative writing classes		N
Shutter Speed		N
Aperture control		N
A tripod		N
External flash		N
Self timer facility		N
Light meter		N
Composition grids		N

Photoshop Skills

Which of the following features of Photoshop have you used before:

Feature	Yes	No	Comments if yes – where have you completed this skills and to what level
Text control	Y		At home, basic level.
Filters	Y		At home, basic level.
Brushes	Y		At home, basic level.
Layers	Y		At home, basic level.
Opacity control	Y		At home, basic level.
Shape creation	Y		At home, basic level.
Brightness and contrast control	Y		At home, basic level.
Dodge/Burn	Y		At home, basic level.
Clone stamp tool	Y		At home, basic level.
Colour curves adjustment		N
Magnetic lasso, polygon lasso tool	Y		At home, basic level.
Cropping tool	Y		At home, basic level.
Retouch tool	Y		At home, basic level.

In Design Skills

Which of the following features of In Design have you used before:

Feature	Yes	No	Comments if yes – where have you completed this skills and to what level
Margin and column guide creation		N
Inserting text in ID		N
Inserting images in ID		N
Resizing images in ID		N
Text manipulation – resizing, rotation		N
Text manipulation – controlling kerning and leading		N
Text flow creation		N
Text effects – drop shadow		N
Drop cap insert		N
Using transparent imagery in ID		N
Shape creation In design		N
Text wrapping		N
Exporting to PDF from In-design		N