Skill Development Essay

Skill Develop Evaluation Essay

In my foundation portfolio, I created my college magazine front cover, while doing this, I didn’t know much about using Photoshop or putting images together to make magazines. On my foundation portfolio, I completed a college magazine for my college; I took pictures outside of class around the college to promote the college in this magazine. I then created my magazine through Photoshop, developing my skills in Photoshop. I then completed my music magazine; this task was much bigger than the college magazine task so therefore I had to spend more of the year doing my music magazine. I also created this in Photoshop as well as the double page spread and the contents page that went with the music magazine front cover.

Before I started the AS Media course, I had very few skills using Photoshop; I was not able to manipulate images or text effectively. For example, before I started the course is I was to be asked to create the music magazine that I completed in my first year of media studies; I would not be able to complete it. I would only be able to take the images, put them into Photoshop and maybe add text, I would not have been able to change the colour settings on the images, and I would not be able to use any of the tools or techniques that you are able to carry out on Photoshop. Throughout this project, I learned a lot about using Photoshop correctly to make my magazine look realistic and make it look like a real college magazine. After I took the pictures for my front cover, I took a few to make sure that if one went wrong, I would have some back up pictures to I would not have to waste time going out and taking more, I manipulated them on Photoshop, I watched some tutorials on YouTube and asked my teacher to shop me how to use some of the tools on Photoshop. Once I was able to use Photoshop effectively, I could make my images look professional on the front of my magazine. I then on Photoshop added the text and Wyke College logo to show that it is the college magazine.

When I started my foundation portfolio, because I had the starter task of making the college magazine, this gave me the chance to develop my skills in Photoshop, when it came to my music magazine I was able to create the music magazine without many problems because I was able to use
Photoshop effectively. With these skills I learned I was able to change the lightness and darkness of the images, I was able to make the writing look better on the front of the cover, I was able to do a lot more things that I wouldn’t have been able to do before I started the AS Media course.

In my foundation portfolio, I was able to use my skills that I had learned producing my college magazine as a preliminary project, on my music magazine. For example, compared to my college magazine front cover, I was able to make the music magazine look a lot for effective such as making text stand out and manipulation the images to make the magazine look more appealing to read. Also, because my skills had developed a lot since my preliminary task, I was able to complete this with a lot less problems. For example, I was able to add more of the features that I wanted to onto my music magazine front cover because I knew how to work Photoshop a more effectively. My college magazine design is a lot more basic then my music magazine. It had basic text on the front and I did not manipulate the images on the front cover at all. Compared to my music magazine front cover, I have made the text stand out by putting back ground onto the text; I have also added shadow to the text which also allows the text to stand out. I  manipulated the images on the front of the cover which makes the image look more natural and what people would expect to be ‘perfect’ on the front of a magazine.

During my foundation portfolio, my skills developed a lot. From not been able to use Photoshop at all, to been able to make a music magazine from scratch by manipulating the images and creating text to put onto the image. I also created a double page spread which contained a manipulated image which I took myself, an article that I wrote to put onto this double page spread about the artist in the image, and I also created the heading of the page and was able to position the text effectively to make the page look interesting. I would not have been able to create this at all in Photoshop before my foundation portfolio. I also created the contents page of my magazine. This took probably the longest to work on because of all the text that I had to place and type on the page, I did a lot of rough drafts for this page because I wasn’t quite sure how to position the text or change the colour of manipulate the images to make the magazine look aesthetically pleasing, but I watched some YouTube videos which allowed me to learn how to make the page look good.

In conclusion, before I started my foundation portfolio I didn’t know anything about how to manipulate images, add text etc. and most of all I didn’t know anything about using Photoshop, when I started my preliminary task of creating the college magazine, this allowed me to learn all about using Photoshop and then when it came to actually creating my music magazine, I was able to make this without as many problems as the preliminary task, although I came across some difficulties, I was able to solve them easily because I know what to do on Photoshop. Now I am able to do a lot of things that I wasn’t able to do, and I can create and manipulate things easily and effectively.