Evaluation of Front Cover

Evaluation of Front Cover

Photography

When taking the pictures I learned that even the slightest shake with the camera can cause a blurry image as you could slip while using the manual focus and focus on the wrong part of the image by accident. Using the manual focus wasn’t too hard as long as you kept a steady hand while focusing and taking the picture while also not moving forward and backwards slightly. Something I learned when doing it is that there are 2 discs which you need to move to get a proper focus which is the zoom disc as well as the focus one. I thought there was only a focus disc.

            For my first couple of pictures I took I did them in landscape. When looking at them I tried to envisage them as a magazine cover but couldn’t even see it in my head. I then took some portrait pictures and they looked much better for what I needed the pictures for. Doing portrait pictures was harder though as the camera button was less accessible but I got used to it after a few pictures.

            The first couple of pictures I took where poor and out of focus and the feature wasn’t looking at the camera. As I carried on taking pictures I took more control and started instructing the model more to get a better picture. I also used the focus discs more effectively. I tried to get him to stand so the light was coming from the top right, a side light, for a better visual effect on the picture. This proved to work well.

            The eye line of the model is pretty much directly on the top 3^rd. This is good as it makes it a more natural looking picture. However when taking the picture I didn’t know anything at all about the eyeline. It wasn’t until after the shoot that I learned about what it means when it is in a different place. Regardless it where it is works well for the picture.

            The picture overall, I think, is quite good for my first shoot ever with no previous experience with SLR cameras such as the one I was using and I am relatively pleased with it. However I do think I could have done much better. For example I could have chosen a much more appropriate background like a wall or a mesh fence, both of which were available. This would have created a much more “alternative” feel for the photo which would be more relevant for the type of picture I needed.

Photoshop

For my first time in photoshop I feel like I have done pretty well although it is still, in my opinion, a pretty shabby cover.

            Some tools I used where the move tool, the magic wand tool, the rubber tool and the text tool. I also used the stroke and bevel and emboss effects on some parts of the text.

            The magic wand tool was quite difficult to use as I kept forgetting to remove the selected area from the selection and it kept rubbing out at the same time as the other parts.

            I feel like when I used text that it looked to bland and boring even with the bevel and emboss and strokes added on. For some of the text I used I copied and pasted it from google images, for instance the part that says “Green Day”.

            For the effects and drop shadows I simply used bevel, emboss and stroke. These felt like pretty basic and unprofessional tools so in the future I will look for more professional looking effects or try and be able to use them much better.

            Something which I found very helpful with photoshop was merging layers as it made things easier to keep track of and meant I could easily edit whole chunks of the image instead of little bits at a time.

            If I were to improve my front cover I would use a different font for the title and also would try and use more professional looking tools. I would also take the actual photo in a studio for better lighting effects.