Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

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

In this coursework unit, I used a lot of products of technology. The first piece of technology that was used was the internet. I made an account on Blogger.com - a blogging storage service that allows users to posts private blogs with time-stamped entries. And the facility to upload images as well. I have never used blogging but I found its concept very easy to understand early on in the task. Although it is straight forward to use, I found a few problems with its inconsistent operation. For example there is a limited viewer when creating a blog. This is really poor when I was trying to arrange large images to the right place within text, it could be structured properly. Secondly, although Blogger supports shortcut it does not seem to work for me. This was a major problem. For examples of ‘Ctrl+V’ to paste text from Microsoft Word. The only way was to drag and drop the text. Also, the text formats were different. When trying to preview the blog than when it is being put together. Nonetheless, investing a bit of time into using Blogger, and I was able to overcome these limitations and put together a decent, if not eye pleasing, record of my work. I also learnt that Blogger only had limited access to accounts, the advantage being that unauthorised people could not view other student’s work to copy their ideas.

I also used the internet in my researching. Using Google.com as my search engine of choice, I found images of magazine front covers for my textual analysis in Google’s image browsing function, as well as using the web search to find relevant magazine publishing companies to write a case study about. I also used Wikipedia.org, an online worldwide encyclopaedia that can be edited by the public to get detailed information about topics such the publishing companies, and technologies such as the use of soft-boxes.

I used software on the computer such as Microsoft Word 2007, which is a standard word processor, to type up and store my work as well as create my audience research questionnaire. I made use of its spell-check ability to make sure that my work was grammatically correct.

I also used Adobe Photoshop CS3, an advanced graphics editing software to convert my print screens of my audience research graphs into a .JPEG image file that could be uploaded onto Blogger in a good resolution and small file size. Its main use however, was when I used it to edit my images. I knew how to use Adobe Photoshop, so I concentrated on trying to get the best out of my skills. I used Hue and Saturation adjustments on my pictures so that they would look right in my scenes that I created in Photoshop. An example would be changing the colour of the logo and laces of one of my model’s hoodie from a vibrant blue to a more subtle indigo to suit the colour scheme. Secondly, I used the Lasso tools, to remove the backgrounds from my subjects, so that they could be placed onto my custom backgrounds and scenes. I also used the Spot Healing and Patch Tools to remove spots on my model’s faces, and a variety of blur techniques to make my model’s faces seem smoother and shadow. I used Custom Shapes to create my text boxes, Brushes to create the centre division on my double-page spread, and used Blending Options and Opacity to texture the statue.

Although I did not develop any more knowledge about the application, I gained new skills by trying new ideas of manipulating images such as texturing the statue design on my double page spread.

Lastly I used a Canon EOS 400D 10.1 megapixel camera to take my pictures. This was my second time using the camera – the first being in the preliminary task; therefore I was learning new things about this piece of technology all the way through. The first thing that I learnt about using the camera correctly is the correct orientation when taking a picture. They are usually taken in a portrait orientation to fit in as much of the subject as possible, leaving out unnecessary background. When taking my pictures, this made me consider how the image was going to turn out rather than just taking a picture. I also kept in mind how I would frame my subject and the type of shot that I was going to use. I used long shots because once imported into Photoshop