Evaluation 7

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

For my preliminary task I had to produce a front cover and contents page for a school magazine. This was in aid of having a practise on photoshop, to help with the construction of my front cover, contents page and double page spread for my music magazine. This also enabled me to compare the two and therefore show the improvements I made. A major factor distinguishing between the two tasks is the amount of time spent on them. For the preliminary task we only had a few weeks worth of lessons whereas we spent a much longer time period on the full product. I have learnt so much in the progression from my preliminary task to my full product. When completing my preliminary task I had carried out no real research into how a school magazine should look and what it should contain. Little planning went into producing both the front cover and contents page. The images that I used were taken quickly and with no real thought going into certain vital aspects such as costume and location. At the time I didn't realise just how important it was to have good, strong images for my magazine. To take many of the photos I had used my 5 mega pixels camera on my phone, which is why the images were so poor in comparison to the images I used for my full product.I wanted my magazine to be effective and successful.It was very important to get feedback on my ideas because I wanted my magazine to be effective and successful. Overall, alot of research was done before producing the final piece and everything was thought about beforehand in a lot of detail. For example, when it came to the photoshoot I planned it out detailed beforehand which included locations, clothing, make-up, poses, hair, lighting, props, backgrounds and what pages it would be on.I think the locations of where i took my preliminary magazine made it look how it looks, By finding interesting locations other than a plain wall made my final products interesting to look at whereas in my premliminary task all the photos had simple backgrounds. My Photoshop skills have also improved dramatically. My school magazine cover and contents (preliminary task) look very cheap and amateurish. I had used the magnetic lasso tool to cut out my main cover model, which I found extremely difficult. The edges around her head look rough and the image stands out like a sore thumb - not at all as it should. At the time my Photoshop skills were very basic and looking back now I should have atleast tried to soften the edges using the eraser tool. The cover's blue background looks very basic and the shade of blue I have used clashes badly with the bright red. The contents page looks slightly better in comparison to the cover, however it is still very basic. All in all I have learnt a great deal in the progression to my full product, and my skills have expanded on photoshop so i can use more advanced tools without any help.