When taking my photographs I used auto focus to
produce clear professional images. The
T-stance was the best stance to take my photographs, as it enabled me to hold
the camera steadily to prevent blurred images.
I took my photographs in portrait mode, this enabled me to get a produce
a professional head & shoulders shot. I used very balanced composition
through the rule of thirds. I left enough room in the top third for my
Masthead, the middle third included the main feature ‘the face of my model, and
the bottom third included the ‘neck and shoulders of my model’. As I wanted an indie/urban look for my
magazine cover, I used backgrounds such as back streets. I understood how to correctly focus my camera
to produce clear in focus images, leaving me with may images to select from to
produce my front cover. I also learned
that the positioning of the sun affects the brightness of the image,
positioning the sun behind the camera produced clearer, brighter images. Communicating with my subject was simple, I
was able to control and position my subject exactly how I needed. Some images
were not taken correctly, for example in the 3rd photograph my subject is
slightly too small and too the left. The image is also badly out of focus.
Furthermore, I used many tools in Photoshop to create my magazine front
cover. I used ‘Brightness/Contrast’ as well as ‘Levels’ to heighten the colours
and make them more vibrant/ eye catching.
I also used the ‘Magnetic Lasso Tool’, to select the background then
turn it to ‘black and white’. Tools such as the ‘Horizontal Type Tool’,
‘Rectangle Tool’, ‘Ellipse Tool’, ‘Crop Tool’ and ‘Stroke’ were also used to
create my magazine front cover. I didn’t find using any of the tools difficult,
and comfortable produce my product with no problems.
The text used on my cover was controlled, most my texts where very similar
in style and compliment my theme. On the
main quote at the bottom of the cover, I used a ‘drop shadow’ to make it
distinctive, it creates an eye catching 3D effect. As you can see by my
original images I used the cropped my main image down to the correct size, I
then used ‘free transform’ to expand my image and fit it to the page. I did not download any fonts; I used the fonts
made available by Photoshop itself. I used colours from my subjects shirt, the
main colours used were; black, white, gold and green.
To improve my front cover, I would change some of the font types, and
use a wider variation of fonts making each cover line stand out individually. I
would also make my masthead bigger to reduce white space at the top of my
cover, making my cover busier. I believe
that my main strength of my cover is the layout; the composition of my main
image works well with the arrangement of my cover lines and front-page
splashes. All text used on my cover, is
eye-catching and stands out well, the bold stroke used around my texts forms a
good contrast against the background colours.
