Evaluation

Question Six

During this project, I have learned the importance of using Web 2.0 blogs to keep my Documents etc in order and in one place. If the project was to be kept in a folder or on paper it would be much easier to lose or damage it. It’s also easier to manage my files and makes them look more presentable. If my front cover, contents page and double page spread had to be printed out instead of being put on a blog, the quality wouldn’t have looked as good. Also, it allows me to upload other things apart from text and pictures such as videos or voice recordings.
Photoshop was really helpful and quite easy to use once I had got the hang of it. It allowed me be to be more creative and create something of a better quality. I used tools such as the polygonal lasso tool, which allowed me to delete parts of a picture I didn’t want. I also used the drop shadow tool, to add shadow to my text, this made it stand out a lot more. Using Photoshop, I was able to easily add and manipulate text to a way which suited the style of my magazine. I used the crop tool a lot to get the right part of the pictures I wanted. For example, I had to crop some information off of my barcode in order for it to fit and look presentable on my front cover. I also used to the spot healing brush tool to airbrush my pictures to make them look more professional. Advantages of using Photoshop is the fact its really quite quick to put together a front cover and there is much you can do to make it look professional and realistic. The different layers make it easier to edit certain parts without having to edit the whole project. However, problems can occur, as with all software and because the files are so big, it takes a long time to save which slows the computer down. Also, some of the tools are quite difficult to use for example, the polygonal lasso tool was quite hard to grasp at first.
Quark is another really useful software I used to create my double page spread and contents page. It’s really simple as there aren’t many tools to use. I mainly used the text and picture box. The style sheets I had to create meant I had to know what I wanted my contents page/double page spread to look like before hand. For example, what font and size I wanted each bit of writing. This could be seen as a disadvantage. Although it was really quick to create something of a good standard. When adding pictures, it was important to have the picture already set to the size it needed to be. Otherwise, when adding a picture box and importing a picture, it doesn’t go to the size of the picture box. Also, when saving the project, it has to be exported as a PDF file in order for it to go on the blog. This sometimes took a long time and the quality decreases. I found that sometimes with my work, it deleted things or it didn’t look as good as what it did when it was in Quark.