The media industry comprises of a variety of tools, available both online and offline. It is important to understand that different software, equipment and services are used collectively to produce a final product and that even similar materials, such as Photoshop and GIMP, have their distinctions.
The entirety of my coursework is distributed accordingly:
The most iconic editing program of the world, Adobe’s Photoshop is an industry necessity. With CS4 being mainstream at the moment and CS5 hitting shelves, there is no denying that this software is powerful for the typical user’s needs.
In all truths, I find Photoshop second nature. Retrospect to my classmates I had already 6 years’ experience, so I was at a major advantage during the editing side of the course. Fortunately for others in my class who have never used it, Photoshop has a renowned learning curve - It’s easy to pick up however mastering it takes a lot of time and effort.
The entirety of my coursework is distributed accordingly:
- All photos were taken on a digital camera.
- All editing, both for photo-manipulation & creating a layout, was produced on photoshop.
- Some images were uploaded to Flickr; an advanced media uploading tool with an array of features
- The majority of images, video & content (including my final magazine) was uploaded onto Blogger; a multimedia blogging service where members can blog individually and as a group.
The most iconic editing program of the world, Adobe’s Photoshop is an industry necessity. With CS4 being mainstream at the moment and CS5 hitting shelves, there is no denying that this software is powerful for the typical user’s needs.
In all truths, I find Photoshop second nature. Retrospect to my classmates I had already 6 years’ experience, so I was at a major advantage during the editing side of the course. Fortunately for others in my class who have never used it, Photoshop has a renowned learning curve - It’s easy to pick up however mastering it takes a lot of time and effort.
Image editing
For image editing the most common conception is that the brightness and contrast should be ‘messed around with’. Most people don’t understand how much of an effect colour tinting can have on a photograph. Within my photos I’ve virtually abused the adjustment layer panel to produce a high standard. This is opposed to ‘fixing’ adjustments where the original file is manipulated – this method is more accustomed to trial and error used by beginners.
Layouts
The industry is advancing at an increasingly rapid rate, nevertheless the theorems remain constant! The media industry is intimately related to the art industry, which is why I have incorporated 3 key theorems used within both industries:
- Rule of thirds – The layout of all three products had to correspond with this rule in order to keep an aesthetic balance.
- Fibonacci – The main point of attention (Main heading or image) must be placed at the ratio 1:1.618.
- Information Architecture – Everything is sized and coloured according to important ONLY. None of this ‘make the entire red to make it stand out’, colour is important and shouldn’t be carelessly abused.
Flickr – Devil’s work.
Personally, I hate Flickr. As a web designer it redeems itself counterproductive: Throughout the course I attempted using this service and found that it was slow to use even on a moderately fast system; That its features such as tagging and notes ARE already surpassed by other services such as Facebook & finally it wouldn’t work on all browsers (in this case Mozilla Firefox was unable to upload photos – resulting in frustration).
Flickr is great for its actual needs of a social multimedia sharing service (a mouthful) however in this case of integrating the images onto my blog, completely pedantic. The idea of connecting links from a blog to Flickr is time consuming for both the uploader and the audience.
Blogger – Basic needs, basic service.
A reputable popularity in the early 00’s, Blogger is a great service for beginners who are new to blogging. It redeemed a number of essential features:
- Media Uploading (Images & Video)
- Embedding from external sites (Namely vimeo & youtube)
- Integration with services such as Wordpress.org & Flickr (as demonstrated in my blog)
- Spell check
- HTML editing / Content formatting
Overall – Lessons learned
Honestly, each and every one of the techniques I’ve used throughout the entire course I already was very familiar with – especially regarding Photoshop. The opinions I have come to from the course are:
- Flickr is not made for blogs
- Photoshop is highly versatile
- Blogger is great for beginners, however a hosted option is preferred for professionals
