From doing my studio shoot I’ve learnt that a lot of things need to be taken into consideration for a shoot to be successful. These are mostly down to production and catering to the audience; for example MES is essential for a successful cover image because without interesting/relevant clothes and makeup their will be no interest from the audience. The aspects of AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action)  also need to be taken into consideration because these are the components that a good front cover needs.

From editing my front cover model I’ve learnt new photo skills on both InDesign and PhotoShop, mostly ways to really enhance my images to make them more bright and exciting. I also used the editing software to perfect things that couldn’t be changed in real life.

One tool I found really useful was the ‘curves’ tool in PhotoShop which can be used to change the lighting of an image.

I used curves to brighten up the image whilst also adding depth to other areas, this is why curves was better to use than changing the exposure because you can lighten an image without it starting to look faded. Curves is a good tool to make it appear as if the perfect lighting was used when the picture was taken, making my star look as good as they can.

A tool in both InDesign and PhotoShop that I’ve used a lot is the ‘eyedropper’. This picks up a colour from your image and lets you use it in other areas.

I found this helpful to find the perfect typeface colours for my masthead and cover-lines by picking out colours from my star’s top or jacket and making them brighter; this made my front page look more put together and professional because the cover star matched the front page really well and there were not too many different colours used.