WEEK 2: EVALUATING COLLEGE MAGAZINE COVERS

College Magazine Covers:

We evaluated some college magazine front covers we found online to give us an idea of what makes a good college magazine cover so we apply those when creating our own college magazine.

The layout of this magazine works well. The masthead fits across the top of the page perfectly, the person in the photo is directly centre and the coverlines are written all around him not covering his face. The top of his head goes over the masthead so his eyes are not cut out by it. The colours work well together and are kept very minimal with different shades of blue and a tan colour, the blue fits with the darker blue background of the photograph.

Once again, the masthead fits perfectly across the top of the page, with the persons head covering it partly so we can see them properly, however the masthead can still be read. The cover titles are placed differently to the first and are all down the bottom so the photo is not hidden by them and they are still legible. The colours once again fit the background by using white for the masthead and some of the cover lines and aslo using yellow and a pop of red.

This magazine is a little bit more busy but still works well as a front cover, it is a college football magazine so the business of the front could represent the business of a football match. The photo is an action shot and the person is wearing green and white, the colours of the magazine contrast his uniform by using mainly white and yellow. The coverlines do not cover the photo at all but the photo slightly covers the masthead. The masthead fits well across the top of the page.

The font of this magazine does not fit very well, it looks very unprofessional and the colours do not fit the photo very well. The background of the photo is a garden and was not thought through very well as it does not reflect a college and because of the lighting you cannot see the photo very well. The cover lines are placed randomly around the edge and do not fit a format, the masthead also does not fit across the top.

The photo is much more suited to a college magazine in this as you can see it’s taken outside a college, however the colour scheme does not fit with it. The masthead is placed to the left of the cover and does not go across the entire top which is unconventional. As the previous, the cover lines are placed very randomly all around the magazine and many of them are not legible because of the colour, size and font. The photo does not have direct mode of address so we do not relate to the person on the front.

The masthead for this cover is on two lines which is very unconventional and makes it look unprofessional. The font of the cover lines is in serif but is not very readable, the cover lines are minimal and are not fitted in a professional looking format around the photos, although the front colours fit the photos it is a bleak colour and does appeal to the desired audience. There are also several different fonts which makes it look messy

 Looking at front covers and identifying what makes them good and bad while using the terminology will help me to develop my front cover for my magazine as I know the proper terms for the visual aspects and can apply them to my own knowing what makes it look good.

WEEK 2: TEXT TOOLS AND LAYERS

We worked on creating a practise front cover and were shown how to use the text tools in Photoshop.

 

 

 

TEXT TOOLS:

The text tool in Photoshop looks like this (above). Once clicking it a cursor appeals allowing you to click anywhere on you image to place where you want your writing to be, you then type whatever you want. To adjust your text you highlight what you have written, this enables you to change the font, text size, colour etc. This is all in a bar across the top, you can also adjust the smaller details such as the height of the letters, the spacing between the letters and the width of the letters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LAYERS:

The text becomes a separate layer to the photo and you can cut out the person, making the person and the background two separate layers so you can put the masthead behind the persons head if desired. Using the layers you can also add layer effects such as drop shadow and bevel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These skills are useful for making our magazine as we can not only add text but also alter it to however we want and easily move and change it as desired.

 

 

 

 

 

 

WEEK 1: Photoshop Skills cont.

LASSO TOOL:

The Lasso Tool is mainly used to cut an image out of a background. It looks like this in Photoshop:

There are 3 types of 'Lasso tools' you can use. The first is the normal Lasso Tool, this allows you to draw a freeform selection of whatever you want on your image giving you all the control (I did not use this tool). The second is the Polygonal Lasso Tool, this allows you to draw a selection consisting of line segments, giving you main control with a little bit of help. The last is the Magnetic Lasso Tool, this allows you to draw a selection based on the edge of the image in contrast to the background.

Polygonal Lasso Tool:
To start you must click on the edge of the image you would like to cut out, it is best if you zoom in so you can see the pixels for this. Then you have go around your image occasionally clicking once to keep your line in place and create the shape you want around your image. To finish you come back around to where your first point was and double click. Finally you copy and paste and you have your two layers one which has the background and one which doesn't. I chose a photo of Miley Cyrus:


Original Photo-


















Cut Out using Polygonal Lasso Tool-


























Magnetic Lasso Tool:
This works best if you have a very contrasting background to you photo, for example you have someone dressed all in white with a black background. You drag your mouse around the person without clicking and the line 'sticks' to the edge of them as it recognises the difference between the background and the person. To finish you do the same as the Polygonal Lasso tool by double clicking back where you started and clicking copy and paste to get the two layers. I chose a photo of Demi Lovato:


Original Photo-

Cut Out using Magnetic Lasso Tool-


























Learning how to use this tool will be helpful when creating our front covers. If we have a background that we dislike or would like to put another maybe smaller photo without a background in the corner as a magazine might have this will help us to cut it out with ease. This also introduced us to the use of layers within Photoshop.

WEEK 1: Photoshop Skills

We were shown how to use some basic tools on Photoshop to tidy up an image and then had to give it a go ourselves.

Spot Healing Brush Tool:

 

 

 

 

 

This tool can be used to cover spots, it’s automatic and you have no control over how your chosen area is being covered up. When you click on the spot healing brush a small circle comes up, you click, hold and drag the circle over the blemish or damaged area of the photo and the tool blends it into the background assuming that is how you want it to look, thus eliminating the ‘blemish’ you didn’t want. You can adjust the brush size on this tool for more accuracy making it bigger or smaller.

 Healing Brush Tool:

 

 

 

 

 

This tool allows you to have control over how your ‘blemish’ is covered. By holding the ‘alt’ button on the keyboard you can click in the area you would like use to cover the ‘blemish’ and then once you’ve let go you can go ahead and click over the ‘blemished’ area to cover it with your chosen cover area. This tool lets you decide how your covered area looks and instead of blending into the background you have the opportunity to include shades.

 Patch Tool:

 

 

 

 

 

The Patch tool is good for when you are working with large areas. You can draw around the area you do not want and drag it into an area you want it to look like, covering the unwanted area with another section of the picture. It’s a lot quicker than the Healing brush tool and works well when dealing with bigger unwanted areas.

Clone stamp:

 

 

 

The Clone Stamp tool copies another area of the photo straight onto the unwanted area. By holding ‘alt’ and clicking an area then letting go and clicking in another area, a small + will appear underneath your circle, you can then drag across the areas you would like to cover up and it will copy the area where the + is onto the area you are covering with your circle. You can adjust the brush sizes and also the opacity.

We used these tools on a scratched image in an attempt to almost recover them and make them look a lot better:

BEFORE 

 

            

 

 

AFTER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By using the Clone Stamp tool you can make wrinkles appear less noticeable, through reducing the opacity you can go over the wrinkles on someone’s face making them ever so slightly disappear however making sure they are still there so it looks realistic. We gave this a go:

BEFORE  

                                                          

 

 

 

 

 

AFTER

 

 

 

 

 

 

This exercise has given us the ability to use these basic tools on Photoshop and these tools will be helpful when creating our magazine covers as we will be able to cover any unwanted ‘blemishes’ on the photos we have taken for our front covers.