EVALUATION - Question 6

What have I learnt about new technologies?

Through the creation of my magazine's I have been using many technologies to help my research,design and create my media text. These have helped my through the process of not only my music magazine, but my school one.

The first software that I was introduced to was Blogger. This is where I have presented all my work onto. Its a fast simple way to present my coursework and make it look good. The first thing we did on blogger was to analyse a music magazine front cover, this helped me understand how to use this website and how to present it correctly.

you can see from then to now how much my skills of presenting have increased, Then I didn't know what embedding was or how to, or turn into a powerpoint slide into a JPEG so the first post i ever did was very messy but now they have improved.



I've also learnt about embedding. The first time i learnt how to embed was when i used Prezi to research into 'Kerrang!' This is a software that allows you to create presentations on a virtual canvas, it has a zooming user interface, which allows you to zoom in and out of different text boxes while presenting. It has a button which allows you to embed on to websites such as blogger so you can activate and work it on the blog.

Many other websites have allowed me to embed onto my blog. Most of these i have used in my Evaluations....

Padlet:                                                                                              Scidb:

ThingLink:














When creating both my school magazine and my music magazine I used a software called Fireworks, this is a bitmap and vector graphics editor, This allows people to design and make magazines, posters ect... Fireworks has many features such as editing images, cropping, re-colouring, use of different fonts and changing the appearance/style , adding variety of images, fading them, Different painting tools, Creating Shapes.

Example of some of these:

 I already knew how to do simple things on fireworks but one of the main things that i had to learn how to do was using font from the web and putting it onto Fireworks and making it look good ( Not pixelated.) I used a font website called dafont.com.

This gave me many different styles of fonts that I could use for my magazine. 

On my front cover I've used a font from this website, but I had to do a lot of things on fireworks to get rid of the pixels and changing the colour ect.... 

Here's an example of what I had to do:

 I first choose what I want, then print screen it into fireworks and crop it down, so all ive got it the text.

Then i use the magic wand tool (Top button circled in red) This deletes all the background and anything else apart from the text. Then i use the bitmap tool and square off the text.Them you use the arrow to select it, and then you can paint and change colour and hide all the pixels and see if anything is out of shape or cut out.







This technique I have used a lot on my magazine.

Another website I've used is Flickr. This is a software which allows you to store all images on a viral hardware. This was perfect for when i was taking different images for my magazine and i didn't need keep them on my computer.This made things easier for when i was editing images, and all i would do it copy paste them, or save them to re-upload them into an editing website. 
One of the main things i did for my magazine was editing images. I used mainy websites such as fotoflexer.co.uk    picmonkey.com   and befunky.com. At first i found these really complicated to use, but once I'd done it once it was very easy. All these websites allowed me to use all photoshop equipment for free, which helped my magazine look as professional as i wanted. The website offered:

 Teeth whitening
Tanning
Airbrushing
Eye Bright
Black and White effect
Sepia effect
Cropping
Contrast
And many more...









Finally another software which I already knew how to use, but but as a user was YouTube.
For apart of my evaluation I interviewed someone who is apart of my target audience. I had to set up a YouTube account and learn how to upload on my mobile, This allowed me to understand how to create and use free video websites such as YouTube to allow me to experience using it.

Overall through the process of making my magazine's, I've learnt all about different software's and what they can do. This had enlarged my list of media forms and software's I know how to use, This will help me in the future.