Development Diary…

The first thing I hade to do in the making of my front cover of my music magazine was pick the photo that I was going to use from the shoot that I conducted. To do this I opened

Photoshop and went to file > open > and then found the photo that I wished to use, in this case, image 0007.

Once opened, I started to edit the photo to make it look more professional. I started with the levels – for this all I had to do was go to image > adjustments > levels.

I then adjusted the sliders to make use of the tonal range in the photo and then pressed OK when I was happy with it.

I then went on to do the same things for the curves.

The curves of the photo control things such as midtones and the lightness etc. To get the best effect it always good to make a sort of ‘S’ shape with the line and the photo should look professional enhanced.

Finally I unsharp masked the photo to make it really clear.

To do this all I needed to do was go to filter > sharpen > unsharp mask. I then ensured that the amount was 150, the radius was 2.0 and the threshold was 4 – this is important other wise the photo could end up looking too harsh or grainy.

Here is the finished photo compared to its original state.

As you can see the second photo looks a lot more professional – the colours look richer and the photo appears clearer. As my music genre for my magazine is Gothic/industrial/cyber, the appearance of my model in the photo my be flawless and look it’s best. This links to the culture that surrounds my audience and how their appearance and what they chose to wear or style themselves is always perfect as it plays such a big part in their musical influences.

Next, I went on to ‘perfecting’ the photo in terms of any flaws the model my have had e.g. an imperfection on her skin etc. To do this I used the spot healing tool on Photoshop and simply used it on any areas I wanted to look better. The tool works by ‘blotting out’ the imperfection and making it match the skin tone around it.

For example, here you can see an imperfection on the arm of model, but by clicking on it using the spot healing tool you can see how it has gotten rid of it.

Finally, to make the skin look ‘perfect’, and to comply with typical conventions of the ‘Gothic’ genre of having clear pale skin, I air- brushed my models skin.

To do this I duplicated the layer of the image – the ensured that should I make any mistakes I could just get rid of the layer and the rest of the image that I had already edited would be fine. All I need to do was go to the selection bar at the top of the page and select duplicate layer.

Once I had completed this I went on to select the brush tool. I had previously downloaded some ‘skin brushes’ off of the Internet for Photoshop and these brushes allowed me to achieve the effect I wanted without the skin looking ‘fake’ of over edited as they are very fine.

I then just used the colour selector tool or the eye-dropper to select the colour that I wanted from the skin (as the skin isn’t the same tone all over).

Here is the before and after of the image – you can see here that the skin looks so clear and ‘perfect’ and the skin tone has been evened out more which helps to comply with conventions of the culture of the music genre.

Now that I have altered the levels, curves and ‘perfected’ the photo, I was ready to ‘cut’ it away from the background ready to be applied to a new document. To do this I used the magnetic lasso tool on Photoshop. This tool allows me to quickly ‘outline’ the part of the photo I want, and then I can go in and use the mask tool to neaten it up with the eraser tool.

Once I had done this and gotten it how I wanted I went on open a new document that would act the cover for my magazine and something I could apply my ‘cut-out’ image to.All I was required to do at this stage was go to file and select new, then this dialogue box came up:

I then changed the dimensions to that of an A4 page and pressed OK.

I then had my new page created and ready to apply the image onto it.

To do this I took the selected image using the move tool and dragged and dropped it onto the new document.

Next, I resized the image till it was how I wanted it. For this, I used a keyboard shortcut by holding down the control key and pressing the T button, I was able to resize the image to my liking and then simply press entre when I was happy with it. Another keyboard tool I used was the shift key – by holding this down when resizing the image it stops the proportion changing so my model didn’t end up looking ‘funny shaped’.

Here the finished, resized photo on the new document.

I then had to move onto the background of the cover. To do this I duplicated the background layer by right clicking it with the mouse and selecting the duplicate option. I then decided that on this layer I was going to apply a slight gradient – to do this I used the gradient tool in Photoshop.

Once I had applied the gradient by dragging the mouse across the entire cover, this is what it looked like. (The colours I chose were a light pink and pale grey.)

The next thing I included was the title. I found the text for my title on a font website and then saved the image to use in my magazine. I firstly opened the file by using the normal file> open method.

Once open, I then selected the magic wand tool on Photoshop – I used this to select all the white space around the text itself as I didn’t want this on my cover. I then went to the task bar at the top and picked ‘select’. I wanted to inverse the selection I had made so only the text to put onto the cover. Once inversed, I used the move cursor on Photoshop and dragged and dropped the text selection onto the cover.

I then positioned and resized it by using a keyboard shortcut; holding down ‘cmd’ and ‘T’.

I then did the exact same thing for the slogan that I had for my magazine.

This is what the heading looked like after.

To make the heading more unique and something that would stand out in amongst other magazines in a shop, I wanted to add something that would give it it’s own identity - I decided to simply add a line going through the slogan on the heading.

All I needed to do was select the shape tool on Photoshop and pick the ‘line’ option.

I then had to ‘draw’ the line by dragging it across the page and make it the length and weight that I wanted. I then position the line onto of the text and made it the same colour. Because the line was really strong it kind of distracted from the text itself so I decided to change the percentage of opacity that it had. For this I simply selected the layer and lowered the level of opacity on the panel at the top of the layers bar.

Here is what the finished headline looked like.

Text was the next thing I looked to add to the cover (in terms of coverlines etc.) The text was relatively easy to decide and arrange. I just clicked on the text icon in Photoshop and then used the text tool bar at the top of the screen to change the text to what I desired – as you can see here I used a font called ‘Bank Gothic’.

The CD was the next element to on the cover that I looked at adding. The CD that I wanted to included was is going to be in a cardboard flat case that could be easily attached to the magazine and that has smaller dimensions than a typical plastic CD case – the measurements being 12 x 12. So I had a guide of where I would be putting the CD and for the image and text for it I drew a 12 x 12 black square using the shape tool and positioned where it was going to be.

I then inserted the image I want to put on the cover (just like how I did the main image) and resized and positioned this too.

Finally I added the text using the text option on Photoshop and editing it to what I wanted using the text tool bar.

I then went about adding in the splatter effect that I wanted on the background as all the main components were on the cover now.

For this I went onto the Internet and downloaded some special Photoshop brushes that I could use to achieve the effect that I wanted. I then loaded the brushes and they appeared in my brushes collection as shown. It was then a case of experimenting with the diameter of all the brushes and the various shapes of them to find the ones that I wanted to use.

Once I had done this I then had to change the level of opacity so that the colour wasn’t as strong. I did this using the paint brush tool bar.

Before I just started apply the effect using the brushes I had to ensure that I was on the right level so that the effect would appear underneath all the images and text. For this I simply selected the ‘background copy’ layer that I made previously in the layers bar.

This is what it looked like when I had finished. (I used black and a magenta/purple colour as it matched the house style.) (Ignore photo on CD – it was only used to make everything clearer during construction.)

The next thing I chose do to was the straplines. I wanted straplines at both the bottom and top of the cover. I just used the shape tool again to make these and filled them in black.

I then positioned it where I wanted and made it the correct size.This is what it looked like after.

The barcode was the next thing I added to the cover. I found a picture of a barcode that I wanted to use from the Internet and then opened it in Photoshop.

Once I did this I used the move cursor tool in Photoshop to drag and drop the barcode onto the cover. When I had done this I just resized and positioned it like with the other elements on the cover.

Finally I did the insert that I wanted to have on the cover. I again used the shape tool in Photoshop, only changing it to a circle. Once I had the circle positioned and sized to what I wanted I went on to add the text onto it. I used the text tool in Photoshop again for this.

Here is what it looked like.