Magazine - Photoshop - The Making Process

Firstly, i started off with a leather black background with a few white areas, however, upon choosing my photo, i believed this background didnt match the main image of my magazine. The leather background also didnt resemble or reflect the genre of horror, the background therefore wasn't effective for me to use for my magazine as it looked like a normal piece of leather rather than a suitable background for a horror magazine such as mine.

Secondly, i removed the leather background and replaced it with a pitch black background , i chose to do this as darkness as closely affiliated with the genre of horror and is conventional within horror films, the nature of darkness was appropriate as a background. Next, i searched horror themed fonts on the internet that were royalty free and available to download. I then chose the font called You Murderer BB for the masthead of my magazine which is named Night Terrors, it was suitable to use as it had a blood and gore theme. Secondly, i took a still image from my group's production shots that weren't used and implemented it into my magazine. I then cropped it using the pen tool, however, it was difficult to crop due to the dark atmosphere surrounding the character, it was difficult to distinguish and crop an accurate head shape with all of the characters features. The characters shape on screen therefore looked unnatural and unprofessional, i decided to leave this aspect of my magazine until later. Furthermore, i added a barcode at the bottom of my magazine to make it look more authentic. Next, i decided to download more horror themed fonts for my magazine, i then found a font named Buried Before BB that i used for the text at the bottom of my magazine. I ensured there was a red box below the text so that it was easily noticeable and readable for viewers. It was important for this text to be noticed as it include the plus features of my magazine which would serve the purpose of an incentive for readers to purchase my magazine. I also added the website of my magazine on the top left hand corner in white as well as a halloween edition sticker on the right hand corner. Besides the red box, i also added the price of my magazine which is £2.50.

Next, i decided to take another still shot from my group's production shot that was slightly different from the last shot. I then enlarged the image so that it covers the whole magazine. This looked much better than before but the colour of the still shot that was taken was quite grey and it also had some grain/visual noise, therefore it didnt stand well next to my black background but the shot also wasn't as visible as it should be.

Furthermore, to blend in the character into the background, i used the surface blur tool which also reduced the grain beside the characters face which helped to retain my original black background. Next, i also used the magic wand tool to take out the black box that surrounded the masthead which was useful as part of the characters face was under the masthead which made my magazine look more consistent. Furthermore, i also used the reduce grain tool to remove the noise from the characters face and i used colour contrasting and brightness tools to make the characters face more sinister but also visible to the audience. The black and white of the characters face was extremely noticeable but the combination of colours made his face pop. In addition, next to the price of the magazine, i added the date and issue number to make my magazine look more official. I also took out the halloween sticker in the top right hand corner as it looked unoriginal and unsuitable for my magazine. In addition, i added a picture of John Carpenter and a story relating to him in the middle of my magazine cover, i felt this was appropriate as my magazine is based on horror and John Carpenter is a well known horror director, therefore his appearance on my magazine links to horror and is therefore suitable for me to include. i added a white border around John Carpenter's face to make my magazine look more professional and i also used professional font for the story beside him which was called Oswald BB, i downloaded this off the internet. I also added and customized a halloween pumpkin and placed it in the bottom right hand corner to illustrate to readers that this magazine is a halloween special edition. Conveying this message through a pumpkin would be effective as the pumpkin is the traditional logo that symbolizes the event of halloween. 

I went on to make a few significant changes to my magazine. Firstly, i enlarged the date, issue number and price of my magazine, i then coloured it yellow to make it more noticeable and i placed it on the top right hand corner of my cover. I also changed the placement of my magazines website and i put it on the bottom right hand corner above the barcode and beneath the halloween pumpkin. Secondly, i moved the masthead to the middle of the magazine and i created a slogan and placed this beneath the masthead itself. To make my cover more appealing to readers, i added a limited edition sign on the top left hand corner to provide viewers with a incentive to further read the inside contents of my magazine. I further added page information at the bottom left hand corner that would show viewers that my magazine is 50 pages long. In addition, i added another story to the front of my magazine which is based around the Amityville House, this was appropriate to utilise as the Amityville House comes from the horror film , Amityville Horror. I used the same typeface for my second story however i manipulated the size of the text to ensure it fits within the cover without overlapping or coming to close to the other contexts of the magazine. Like the photo of John Carpenter, i added a white border for the Amityville House picture to ensure my magazine maintains professionalism but this also made the cover look more consistent. Furthermore, i added red lines below and over writing to make the text look more polished but also to highlight the coverlines of my magazine. Furthermore, i also added a bloody handprint on the top right hand corner to make my magazine look more horror themed but the colour of the hand also matches the red colouring of the covers masthead and slogan.

Upon meeting with my teacher, she suggested that i start my magazine again, this was justified as my current magazine was too complicated and didnt look professional, therefore i was more than willing to start a new magazine as i would be able to create one that looks authentic and more reflective of typical film magazines. My last magazine also focused too much on the horror genre, therefore it didnt take the role of being an informative and official film magazine. To start off my new magazine, i changed the picture on the front cover and placed it in the middle to leave space for my masthead, the new picture also was more clear to see and showed the characters face in lots of detail. The picture above shows the starting point of my new magazine that i would work on progressively.

The first significant change i made to my new magazine was the main picture. I felt the characters chin and mouth was cut off and therefore i decided to choose a photo that showed the characters full face without any obstructions. Secondly, i changed the name of my magazine from Night Terrors to Film Reel as i felt this name was more suited to a film magazine, i even ensured the font of this masthead had a film reel effect on it to ensure the title is recognisable but the typeface also links to the name of the masthead itself. Furthermore, i added a barcode to the right side of the magazine to make my magazine look more professional, i also added a date on top of it to ensure my magazine denotes authenticity. In addition, i made the cover lines of my magazine more simple than it was before and added these on both sides of my cover. I highlighted the head cover lines with yellow to make it clear to viewers what the topic of my cover lines are. In addition, i added the title(School Secret) of my teaser trailer under the face of the character to make it clear that this magazine is promoting me and my groups film. I also added a slogan at the top of my magazine to provide viewers with an incentive to further read and purchase my magazine, this is also reinforced with a free cd advertisement on the bottom right that will also appeal to readers. The price of my magazine is placed at the bottom of my magazine however i may consider moving this next to the barcode to make my magazine look more conventional. In regards to text, i used an outer glow effect on all text to make it stand out more. Furthermore, i have yet to edit the characters face on my magazine cover but i will most likely use photoshop's magnetic lasso tool to cut out the face from its background and place it within my own magazine. However, i've already reduced the visual noise and sharpened the characters face to enhance the overall quality of the shot but i still have a lot of work to do in regards to editing the characters face for my magazine cover.

Firstly, the most significant change that you will see is of the main image of my magazine. Not only did i resize the image and enlarge it but i used color contrast and brightness tools to make the characters face stand out and become more visible to the audience as well as rubber and blend tools to remove the background from the character itself. I also changed the font of my main cover lines to make it look more professional. I changed the way " School Secret " was presented by changing the font into a horror themed typeface and i separated the writing and positioned it accordingly but i left a white box on the word " School" just to add extra effect to the title itself.  In the bottom right hand corner, i had an advertisement for a free CD however i removed this and replaced it with a promotional sticker to make the cover more authentic and reflective of a film magazine. Furthermore i placed the price of my magazine from the bottom to above the barcode so that my magazine maintains a conventional look. I also decreased the size of my date and price so that it does attract too much attention to viewers. I added a website link on the top left of my cover just under the masthead to ensure my cover looks official as a website link implies that my magazine brand is accessible on other platforms. In addition, i added shadows to any text that wasn't visible enough to ensure it was readable for the audience.

The last changes i made to my magazine was reducing the font size of the pound sign on the front cover so that it matches the priced numbers. I also changed the red button on the bottom right hand side as previously, this button looked blurry and unclear which would make it difficult for viewers to read my magazine.