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

Through the process of creating this magazine, I have learnt many things about technology and the advantages it gives the user when creating a media product. There is numerous hardware and software which is required when carrying out such a product and a lot of it is either already owned or comes at a cost effective price. I used: a computer, the internet, Photoshop, an iPad and a sound recording device.

The vital piece of software which I used the most when creating this magazine was Photoshop CS5.5. This professional piece of software allowed me to design, create and manipulate a wide range of images which were to be included in my magazine. I also did some research and found out that the majority of magazine brands use Photoshop in order to construct and bring to life their ideas. I found this interesting as I had exactly the same software available 24/7 with more tools than I would have needed. From this, I inferred that photo editing software is a must in the magazine industry and without it, constructing a magazine is near impossible. Additionally, this type of software allows the user to put different twists into their magazines which other companies may not have ever thought about doing.

Another large/vital piece of technology which I understand must be available when working on such a project is the internet. Obviously the interent is huge and has been around for a fair amount of time which is why it's developments and improvements allowed me to research, advance and finish this music magazine project. There are many sites which allowed me to compare my magazine with others and then reflect on the things I had done well, and the things which could have been improved. They also gave me an insight to how music magazine industries work and the kinds of magazines they would expect from the creator (myself). Furthermore, this aided the write-up of my publication plan and the production plan.

The final main piece of technology which I think should be mentioned is the use of my iPad 2 16GB. On my iPad, I have a wide range of apps which enabled me to review each page I had created in detail and then add notes so that I could edit them on the computer at a later stage. I also have a Photoshop app on te iPad which is slightly different to the computer version in terms of the amount of features available. They were slightly more limited however different as I was able to put very retro effects on images which would have been hard to apply if I was on a computer. The camera was also a big aid as the recording quality is HD and the images it takes are very crisp. This was beneficial as I was then able to import these images onto Blogger and then post about them.

To summarise, I have learnt many things about technology and the benefits it brings to someone who is creating a magazine. Software is extremely important as well as hardware which is vital as this is required for all software. I think that Photoshop was by far the most important aspect of this project purely because of all of the features it offers and the vast scale of creation ability.