Before I could begin any design stages of my magazine, I needed to take photos to include in my magazine. I needed at least four to be included on the front cover, contents page and double page spread. I first looked at other magazines that had women on the front cover as I was using a girl as my model. This gave me an idea on how to pose my model and what to include in terms of mise-en-scene. When I came to take my photos I used a Kodak 5.0 megapixel camera. I found that this camera gave clear pictures and was very easy to use. 
Pictures could easily be transferred to the computer and different settings on the camera such as the fine focus helped me get better quality pictures. I learned a lot about photography and framing when taking my pictures, as the best pictures I took were the ones I took most care in taking.
I used an iMac when creating my magazine and the software on it. I was used to using a PC before the project so using the iMac took a while to get used as some aspects were different. The most important thing about the iMac was the software available on them, such as Adobe Photoshop and InDesign. This was not available on my own computer.
I enjoyed using the professional technology when creating my magazine. The applications I used most when making my magazine were Photoshop, InDesign, Microsoft Word, Grab tool, and websites such as Blogger, DaFont and Youtube. Most of these programs were new to me as I had not worked on a Mac before, so I learnt a lot about professional technologies.
I created my magazine cover and contents page in Photoshop as this gave me all the tools I needed. As photos were the predominant part of the cover and contents page, Photoshop gave me all the photo manipulation tools. 
I learnt to use tools such as the spot healing tool to remove imperfections, magic wand tool (which I used alot when cutting out my model from her background),
gradient effects and lighting effects. These all contributed towards making a professional front cover, as many magazines use photoshop as their editing software. I had not used this software beforehand and it was interesting to learn how to use it. The software is much more complicated than anything I had used before and many tools on it cannot be found in other programs. Photoshop was very easy to use in terms of inserting text and creating effects on the words. This allowed me to create a house style for my magazine.
I found InDesign the most challenging software to use as this was a more text-based program. The options for photos on this was limited, however it did give me many tools that would not be found on Photoshop. When I used photos for my double page spread, I had to edit them in Photoshop then drop them into InDesign as the tools were not available. InDesign allowed to to create a professional double page spread and I learned about the layout and design of double page spreads. I had to look at how much room my pictures should take up, and the standard ways of laying out the text. I used one page of my spread as a picture and blurb, and the other page contained the article. InDesign allowed me to copy my text on to the page then arrange it in columns quickly. InDesign allowed my to use text wrapping and drop-caps tools to give my magazine the professional feel. 
The text wrap tool was very clever as it could find the edges of images I inserted and made sure text and images did not overlap. This technique would have been extremely difficult to recreate on another program.
Before beginning this project, I had not used Blogger before but found quickly it was a simple and creative way of displaying my work. It was easy to keep track of what I had done and I didnt lose any work that would have been on sheets of paper. It offered many creative ways of displaying work as it was on the computer.
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