From designing my front cover of my magazine, I learnt some key features and designing techniques that helped make my magazine look well-made and authentic.
One design feature that helped improve the looks of the front cover was the quick selection tool. This tool allowed me to cut my star out from the background with precision and accuracy. Below on the left is the original picture with the background and on the right is the edited picture with the quick selection tool labelled
This allowed me to remove the background and keep the parts of the image that I wanted/needed for the cover of my magazine.
Another feature that helped improve my front cover picture and help it look professional was the spot healing brush tool. This tool allows unwanted marks and parts of the image to be removed and cover over, it essentially airbrushed the image, which was helpful when removing the first line of writing on the jumper as it allowed for more space on the front cover for the artists name and information such as free content that I wanted to add to draw in a reader.
My personal targets to improve these skills would be to zoom in on what I am editing. Firstly, because it allows me to see every little detail so I can remove blemishes accurately, this will also help speed up the process of editing.
On indesign, one feature I found useful when designing was the W key shortcut. Pressing this key allowed me to see the design view and the print view structure of my front cover. This allowed me to get a more accurate view of how and where I can move aspects of the front page to make it look more authentic. Below is what indesign looks like before I press W and below the first picture is what it looks like after I press W:
As seen in the first picture, all of the text boxes, shapes, place holder and borders are present, allowing me to see where everything is and where and what I need to press to move it. In comparison, below is the print view, allowing me to see what the page would look like finished and printed in hand.