2. Question 6
What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing the magazine?
The production side of magazines is moving so fast and so effectively
that things aren’t done manually and hardcopies anymore;
technologies are taking over. More technologies are being introduced
to speed up and spread the word to more audiences. These new
technologies allow the production process to become much more
creative and effective; people's lives have been made easier.
Personally, I know that the technologies that were available to me
really helped to create products that I was pleased with.
The technologies that I came across with were:
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop
3. InDesign
InDesign is an application created by Adobe Systems. It is mainly used by
people such as Graphic designers for the production of Posters, Leaflets,
Books, Magazines, Newspapers etc.
This is were I basically created my magazine pages. It was the first time
that I hade used this application and it took some time getting used to it. It
is fairly similar to Microsoft Fireworks, which I had used before, so I got
the hang of it quite quickly.
4. InDesign
advantages
The advantages of using Adobe InDesign are that:
You are able to choose from many Font styles, sizes and
colours. I was able to able to download fonts that I liked from an
online site and use them in InDesign. (www.1001freefonts.com)
The ability to use many shading effects and gradients allowed
me to create unique backgrounds and fills to make each product
look effective and suiting to my target audience.
5. InDesign
Disadvantages
I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn’t know how to do it; this
was a problem at first because I was new to the application.
If I wanted something to be in a specific colour, I had to create
it myself instead of it already being available.
6. Photoshop
Photoshop is a graphical editing program created by Adobe Systems. It is
also mainly used for, as its name suggests, editing photos.
This is the program that I used to edit my images before I transferred
them to InDesign. It was the first time that I had used this program so
again I had to gat used to it. Although I only used it roughly 3 times, I was
able to sufficiently master the tools to accomplish my aims.
7. Photoshop
Advantages
The advantages of using Adobe Photoshop are that:
You have access to a gallery of image effects. There were so many to
choose from, it was hard to settle for one.
The quality of photos can be enhanced very well. This helped me with
the images that I took; I liked the way the image was taken but the
quality wasn’t to my liking, so using Photoshop I changed the
“sharpness” etc.
8. Photoshop
Disadvantages
Having never used it before, editing an image was hard for me.
I had only used Microsoft Fireworks in the past to edit images,
so I needed some help to understand what tools were available
to me.