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

Prior to me creating this magazine I had hardly used Photoshop and had used Macromedia Flash occasionally, after creation of my magazine I have learned various things that can be done to help make my magazine stand out, keep it interesting and help my models fit better into the magazine.

The biggest things that I learned are to do with photo editing, I learned how to remove the backgrounds of photos to make them stand out on a background that I'd created on Macromedia flash using transparency. This was basically done by selecting which points that a line would crop from, all around the picture that was needed to be transparent. This helped my final magazine a lot as I managed to combine photographs using it, simulating locations such as the wall on the front cover.

I also learned how to make photos stand out more effectively. When using gradient backgrounds, I was having trouble getting the normal skin colour to be eye grabbing and interesting, the same with the clothes that my model was wearing. In order to fix this I drastically increased the contrast and the brightness, allowing lighter colours to become lighter and more focused for readers.

In Macromedia flash 8, I learned how to add effects such as outlines and glows to my text, and worked out how to use gradients much more effectively then in Photoshop. In Photoshop you must choose a pathway and the gradient follows it, but in Macromedia Flash I could manipulate the gradient as it is a vector based program. This also allowed me to add the transparent centre gradient over the wall in the front cover, giving it a more surrealistic feel.

In my magazine I used a left to right and top down pattern to help readers associate certain things with others, I would not of been able to do this without a tool that I discovered called "Masking". With this tool I was able to add gradient effects (such as the red to dark red gradient on the title) much more easily, and then use it to help my titles stand out in comparison to a solid colour.

All in all I have learned a lot from completing this magazine, and I believe that I used these methods effectively to create an outcome.