Kurt Hammond AS Media Production Blog

AS Media Production: Final Skills Audit Print Production

Name: Kurt Hammond Tutor group: 1.32 Date: 22/04/14

Photographic Skills

Which of the following photographic features/equipment have you used on a camera before:

Feature	Yes	No	Comments if yes – where have you completed this skills and to what level
Manual Focus features	X		In preparation for the photo-shoot I learned how to manually change the focus of the camera so that the photographs come out sharp, the photographs in my blog entry ‘Magazine Front Cover Photographs’ show this.
Shutter Speed	X		I experimented with shutter speed to create motion blur and over/under expose photographs. Evidence of this can be seen in my blog under ‘Shutter Speed Experiments’ in which I used different shutter speeds to create ‘light paintings’ using a torch in a dark environment.
Aperture control		X
ISO Control		X
A tripod		X
External flash	X		I used external flash during my photo-shoot to create specific lighting effects, I specifically experimented with spot lighting and 2:1 ratio lighting for my photographs and some evidence of this can be seen in my blog and final product.
Self timer facility		X
Light meter		X
Composition grids		X

Photoshop Skills

Which of the following features of Photoshop have you used before:

Feature	Yes	No	Comments if yes – where have you completed this skills and to what level
Text control	X		Inserting, changing the size, rotation, colour, font etc. were all skills I had previously learnt. But I also learned how to use text in conjunction with borders in order to make the magazine look uniform and consistent.
Filters	X		I have previously used filters such as different blurs (for example, Gaussian) lens flare clouds etc. Which I have experience downloading and using various filters in previous work.
Brushes	X		I experimented with downloading and applying brushes onto Photoshop projects, specifically in my ‘Brushes Festive Experiment’ blog entry in which I created a Christmas tree using a couple of different brushes I found online. I also recently used brushes during my Graphics work development in order to create smoke and rain effects on my work.
Layers	X		Changing layer order, inserting new layers, hiding/showing layers etc. are all skills I knew previously.
Opacity control	X		I experimented with the opacity of different layers in order to make some layers appear transparent on my work, although they did not suit my project, I did attempt it on specifically my button sell on my front cover.
Shape creation	X		I used various shapes on my project to create borders on the top and bottom of my page, button sells and to separate sell lines.
Brightness and contrast control	X		I slightly modified the brightness and contrast of my photographs (taken during my photo-shoot) during the post production of the photographs.
Gradients	X		I learnt how to use the gradient tool to create a gradient between two colours as well as make a shadow/lighting effect by creating a gradient between a colour and transparent.
Load selection features	X		I used load selection mainly during the editing of my text after it had been rasterized in order to change its colour or remove particular areas of text. I did this through ‘Select -> Load Selection’.
Feathering	X		Feathering selections to smooth and blur cuts or other changes was a skill I picked up during Photoshop tutorials, an example of me performing feathering can be seen in my blog under ‘’ ***CREATE FEATHERING TUTORIAL BLOG ENTRY
Colour curves adjustment	X		I learned how to edit the colours of an image with the colour curves settings, being able to edit the colour curves of RGB, and the individual colours themselves, Red, Green and Blue. An example can be seen in the Photographs with Adjustments blog post on the last example, where I changed the overall tone of the picture from green to a red/pink.
Resolution setting control	X		For all of my Photoshop documents I made sure to set the resolution of my documents to 300 dpi rather than the 72 dpi its defaulted to, in order to keep as much quality in the image I am creating and allow for up and down scaling without major loss of quality.
Magnetic lasso, polygon lasso tool	X		I had previously learned how to use the lasso tool in order to make selections of certain sections of images in order to edit particular areas.
Cropping tool	X		I used the cropping tool to remove any unwanted borders to images that took up too much room on the page and removed the main focus point of the picture.
Clone tool	X		I used the clone tool in conjunction with the heal brush tool to remove blemishes on faces and creases on clothes in my images. Experimentation with the clone tool can be found in the ‘Heal Brush Tutorial’ in which I removed wrinkles and other marks from an example photograph of Gordon Ramsey. I also used it to slightly remove creases from the model’s clothes in my photo-shoot photographs.
Retouch tool		x
Other skills Dodge/Burn tools			I used dodge and burn tools in my photographs adjustments to lighten and darken areas of a photograph (dodge lightens, burn darkens).

In Design Skills

Which of the following features of In Design have you used before:

Feature	Yes	No	Comments if yes – where have you completed this skills and to what level
Margin and column guide creation	X		During the setting up of a new document, I had to decide what size the margins on my page are, as well as the amount of columns I planned to use on each page. I used my research to make these decisions.
Inserting an image ID	X		Using the rectangle tool and ‘file -> place’ I inserted my edited photographs taken in the studio into my project. I also used it on my blog entry ‘My First InDesign Project’.
Resizing images in ID	X		I resized images in InDesign to make sure they fit into the page correctly and were not cropped out by the page margins, making sure to use the shift key to keep the images in proportion and avoid images appearing stretched.
Text manipulation – resizing, rotation	X		After inserting text into ID, I was able to rotate and resize the text. I could rotate it using the black mouse tool and resize the text’s pt size using the text tools at the top.
Text manipulation – controlling kerning and leading	X		I was able to change the kerning of the text (the width between each word) in order to change the amount of space the article took up and not make it look text heavy and put off the target audience from reading it. To the left of that tool is the leading tool, which alters the gap between each line of text, which serves a similar purpose to kerning in changing how heavy the text looks.
Text flow creation	X		After inserting my text into the columns created with the rectangle tool I can make the text flow from one column to the next by dragging the small red square onto the next column.
Using transparent imagery in ID		X	Although I did not use it in my product, I know how to alter the opacity of an image in order to make it look more transparent and be able to see through it to what lays behind the image itself.
Shape/line creation In design	X		I used different shapes and lines to create borders on my DPS, specifically on the bottom, left and right sides to draw the reader’s eye into the centre of the page and arrest their flickability. I also used them to create separation between the columns.
Exporting to PDF from In-design	X		After my product was completed I exported it as an interactive PDF online.
Text Wrap	X		I used text wrap to make the text work around the quotation breakout box, so that they do not overlap and the text provides a border around the box rather than being pushed up against it, causing it to look unorganised and most likely more difficult to read.
Other Skills