Digital Technology

Software at AS:
In AS media, the software that i used in my preliminary coursework was Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop allowed me to edit, change and manipulate the images i used, as well as create images and fonts of my own for my magazine.
The tools like Lassos allowed me to cut around an image and move that piece around and edit it seperately. This was useful for cutting out the image of the person that i wanted on my front cover, as well as creating the logo. The zoom in and out tools made this much easier as well as i could zoom in around difficult parts and follow the line much easier. I used this to create and place the text boxes, as well as create copies of logos that i wanted repeated around the front cover. I could also create copies of the text boxes and fonts so that i could use them elsewhere so all the magazine fitted the house style. Another tool that i used to help with this was the colour dropper as it allowed me to always use the same colours.
Photoshop allows a lot of different editing effects on images as well, such as adjust contrast, brightness, black and white point levels and colour filters. Because of this, it allowed me to change my image and make it look better and more effective for my preliminary work.
Unfortunately, when we started the prelim, i had only ever used Photoshop once before, and i found it hard to learn how to use it effectively. However, now that i have started getting into photography, i find Photoshop a lot easier to understand and i can make images even better than i did in my Prelim.
Using Blogger for my work made some parts easier and some harder. Because all my work was online, it was hard to access and finish my work outside of school, but it made it easier for me to find all my work as it would be on my blog. It also helped when it came to audience feedback as students in my class could look at my work and give me audience feedback which i could then use to improve my work. I could also send links to my blog to others not in my class and ask their opinion, or embed a link on social networks sites and ask for feedback.
During my work at AS i used a variety of software, and each taught me new skills to use on work later. Photoshop was used with my Prelim, and taught me the skills that i've talked about before. During my actual AS coursework, i used a few different video and audio editing software. The first one i used was Windows Movie Maker. Movie maker basically established the basics of video editing, such as cutting, deleting, re arranging, transitions and effects. I used movie maker to edit my AS draft video, but it was not powerful enough for the video that i had recorded.
After movie maker, i used Adobe Premiere Elements. Premiere Elements started to teach me more advanced visual effects and title animations. I also used YouTube to find out how to create other effects, such as the "Invisibility Cloak effect" and the "Cloning Effect". I also started to use effects like Green/Blue screening and Luma key. I then used these effects in my final movie and because Premiere Elements is more powerful than movie maker, it could handle the video clips i used.

Hardware at AS: