Production Monitoring Blog 28th March 2011

Progress

This week i have made some progress on my front cover. I have set up my front cover ready for the image from my photoshoot to be inserted after my photoshoot on wednesday, and i have started writing my article, so it will be entered into the double page spread on thursday afternoon. I have also fully prepared my double page spread ready for the article and have now writen the kicker and headline. Everything went acording to plan, with no faults or problems what so ever.

This is my Front cover, it still needs to have some sell lines added to it and the image and its good to go.

This is my double page spread, all it needs is the article and its finished.

This week i just need to finish the sell lines on the front cover and the article for the inside, then it is all completed. I also need to complete the photoshoot, and build the lego model. the main problem i have is if my source doesnt bring the lego in on that day I will have to find another source but will not have long to do so.

Production Monitoring Blog 21st March 2011

Over the last 2 weeks, I have completed a location photo shoot, manipulated images, and started to design my double page spread. For the photoshoot, I went to redcar to take a picture of my friends car against the industrial background, as seen in the post below. I then put it into photoshop and manipulated the image colour and white balance to be able to get the effect I wanted. I also laid out my double page spread read for my article. Everything went according to plan, everything ran smoothly and went very well.  

I used a Canon 350D with a sigma 10-20mm wide angle lens, I have learned how to set the camera up effectively in manual mode, and know how to frame pictures effectively.

Over the next week i need to write my article and set up my front cover so that it is read for my article and the picture from my photoshoot. I will need to use indesign and photoshop to do this, I will make sure that this is done, so that all I have to do next week is complete my photoshoot, manipulate the images and put it onto the front cover.

Shutter Speed Experimentation

Long Exposure photography is when the shutter is opened and a significant amount of time passes before it is shut again. This is used to photograph in dark conditions, and by photographing moving objects you can make some interesting effects. In the images bellow, the Shutter has been opened for between 10 and 30 seconds. It allows the light to come into the camera, and as it goes past it produces a streak of light. as  you can see, to start of with i wasn't getting very good results, but once i started to get the hang of it i got some very good results. When taking images like this, we need to use a tripod... unless you are incredibly steady, there is no way you can take a picture for 30 seconds without shaking.

Worse ones to start with

As you can see the first few images i took were very glarey, this tuned out to main be down to the fact i was zoomed right out, there was more light getting into the camera. once i zoomed in a bit, there was less light entering the camera, and it wasn't picking up as much white light straight into the camera, which was creating the glare. Both of the above images were taken at 10 seconds, aperture f/9 and ISO 400

Better Ones

The above images are much better. They are taken at the same settings, but are zoomed in, and are staggered to make sure that the white light does go past whilst taking a picture of the red trails. 

This picture was taken in a different location, and with different settings. Because it was white light, it needed to be a much lower aperture. the aperture setting was set to f/40, shutter speed 10 seconds and ISO 200. 

Photoshop

The above image was taken using the same settings as the red trails above, but after it was taken, i took it into Photoshop and added a rainbow colour gradient overlay on the image, by creating a new layer, filling it with the gradient, then adjusting the opacity of the layer so you could see the image underneath. 

Final Product Image

This image was taken for my double page spread in the final product. the image was taken at Redcar using my friends car, and the Corus plant. I used one of the colleges Canon 350Ds and their Sigma 10-20mm lens to allow me to get a wide angled shot. The picture was shot on full manual. The picture took a while to shoot as i was using various different settings to allow the picture to be perfectly exposed. The settings I settled for were:

Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
Appeture:f/5.6
ISO: 100

This allows the image to be a nicely exposed as shown below.

Because the image was taken around 4 o'clock, the colour wasn't quite as I wanted it to be, meaning it didnt suite how i wanted it exactly, so i put the image into Photoshop and adjusted the exposure level, the white balance, the tone curves and added vignetting to create this image:

Magazine Mock Up

This is my mock up front cover. We were asked to create a magazine aimed at young people. I decided to make a music magazine aimed at males, aged 16-25, that like to here about the latest music, and whats happening in the industry. I have used formal language, that allows the users to feel that they are being treat seriously, and that they are given respect. I started of with a blank A4 photoshop page. I decided to use this piece of software, as it is of a professional standard, and allows you to do some cool effects with images and text. I then added the picture of Adam, and started to build up the page. I created the title using a Photoshop Text tutorial Here, but decided to stop at step 2, as it think it looks nice as it is. I then added the strap across the bottom using the shape tool, and the bar-code on the top was copied from Google. The text was all added using the text tool, then loading the slection by clicking on the layer whilst holding the Shift key, and expanding the selection, and filling it the inverse colour to create the outline.

This is my magazine double page spread mock up. It has been designed in InDesign, using columns, dropcaps, images, frames and text link. As you can see my InDesign Skills are very basic, they are just good enough to create a half decent looking product, but are not good enough to create my double page spread for my final product. As you can see, i need to develop my skills, in order to produce a high quality image, and make sure that it enables me to get the best marks i can in my final product.

Aperture Pictures

The aperture on the camera acts simplar to shutter speed, but it as a hole within the lens that grows and shrinks depending on the setting. The bigger the hole is the more light is let into the camera, the smaller the hole, the less light is entered into the camera. But this can also alter the Depth of Field. Depth of field is the amount of picture that is in focus. if you have a shallow depth of field, then there isnt much of the picture in focus apart from the subject, if you have a deep depth of field, there is alot of the picture in focus including the subject.

The link between the aperture and the depth of field is that the bigger the aperture, the shallower the Depth of Field. the smaller the aperture, the deeper the Depth of Field.

Aperture is measured in a numerical value known as an F-stop. most cameras can handle f-stop 3.5-30. The smaller the number, the bigger the appeture. so f-stop 3.5 is a larger aperture, a big hole and a shallow depth of field, and f-stop 30 is a small aperture, a small whole, and a deep depth of field.

Here are some example images:

F/4.5

F/29

F/20

Shutter speed Write-up

Shutter speed can be used to allow light to enter the camera for a certain period of time. The longer the shutter is open, the more light enters the camera, the shorter the shutter is open for, the less light enters the camera. The shutter speed o most cameras can usually be set somewhere between 1/1000^th of a second, and 30 seconds. The shutter can be used to make various effects. If it is a dark scene, you would use a slower shutter speed to try and get the photo exposed as best as you can. You can also use it to create motion blur. Motion blur is where you take a picture with a slower shutter speed, whilst panning, which creates a blurred background, giving the impression through the photograph, that the subject is moving. You can also speed up the shutter, which allows the subjects movement to be frozen in a position. You would use this when photographing a waterfall, or the sea, where the water is moving, and you wish to freeze it in a position without blur.

Here we can see that the subject is producing motion blur, due to the fact that the shutter isn't fast enough. This picture was taken at 1/30 of a second

Here, the image is has also got motion blur due to the shutter not being fast enough, this was also taken at 1/30 of a second.

As you can see this image is much better. it doesn't have any motion blur, but does a have a small problem with it being out of focus. this can be fixed by using manual focus. this picture was taken at 1/500 of a second.

These two images are also controlled using shutter speed. These two photographs were taken using the continuous shooting mode to get the right image, but were shot at 1/800 of a second.

 

Lighting - Side and Front Lighting

Side and front lighting is where the light falls on a particular part of the subject. Side lighting is where the light comes from the side of the subject. This can connotate darkness in the photo, as light is only falling on one side of the subject. Side lighting is good for photographing males, as it accents the jawline, do to where the light hits the subject.

Front lighting is where the light comes from in front of the subject and hits the front of the subject in the photograph. Depending on where the light comes from it produces different effects. if the light comes from above, it produces what is known as "butterfly lighting" this is because it makes a shape that is very similar to a butterfly under the nose. Front Lighting can also be called Glamor lighting. 

Front lighting is usually used to photograph females, as it produces more feminine features, it also softens the jawline and the check bones.

Here are some side and front lighting pictures that i have taken. In order to take these pictures i took a tripod, and used a friend of mines car headlights in order to create the side and front lighting. 

Side Lighting

As you can see, side lighting accents the jawline, and also emphasises the stubble on the bottom of the chin, and the more manly cheek bones. This image is a little bit under exposed, so i could do with increasing the ISO to allow more light into the camera.

Front Lighting

As you can see, Front lighting smooths out the jaw line a little bit, and also smooths out the chin, and the hair line. this image is slightly out of focus, to improve this i could use the manual focus feature, or decrease the aperture and increase the shutter speed.

Introduction Project

In this project I have successfully used the following techniques, Text Control, Layers, Filters, Load Selection and the Cropping tool. Each of these tools I have used very basically, as I do not know how to use them to their full potential. The work I am blogging, shows progression in these skills, because I have only used them to a very basic level before if at all, for instance in the past I haven’t used the load selection tool, and have only used the filters to play with to see what they do. The weaknesses in my product is that it doesn’t look particularly professional, as I haven’t used all the features I could have used, but instead have only used a limited number to a basic level, to improve this I could continue to learn Photoshop, and then should be able to endorse more tools in my work. If I was to do this project differently, I would try and use the camera to a better standard, and learn how to edit photographs more efficiently before doing the project. To move towards the standard achieved in professional working practice, I will have to study media products more to see what they do to make them look better.

For this Product, prior to rebranding, the Target Audience was older parents, or people on the move who don’t have time to prepare big meals. Now, our target audience is 16-19 year olds in Socioeconomic group ABC1. The elements in which we used to engage our audience are the font, and the pig. Because we didn’t use a real pig, the mask creates more of a humorous aspect to it, and the font is more of a teen font, as opposed to a serious font. To improve my product, I would use the camera more affectively, and use Photoshop to create a better more professional looking poster than this one. This is tailored to the needs of our target audience, because when we created this idea, we did not know everything about our target audience, but next time I will be able to meet their needs better. This demonstrates my understanding of segmentation systems, as I have adapted the product, and brought more humour to the product, so that it will appeal to a younger audience. 

Initial Skills Assessment

 

Example 1:
Original                                 Photoshoped


 
Example 2:
Original                                            Photoshoped


 
Example 3:
Original                                    Photoshoped