Editing the A3 Spread

To start, I decided to place my two images of my models at opposite ends of my page, I played around by moving the images into the centre of the page and increasing and decreasing the sizes, however in the end deciding to place them in opposite corners, as to increase the effect of both images and to increase the space for text content. I decided on a Union Jack theme to match the new look of my magazine as this would tie in with my model's tee and the updated colour scheme. I decided to edit my flag with the "Magic Eraser Tool" to make it have a more urban and sheik look - this I thought fitted well with my new look of my magazine. I then used the "Dodge Tool" to fade away the edges to give a more used and worn look to the flag. By placing the flag in the top right hand corner, I thought that this gave my magazine a unique look and a consistent house style. I copied this layer and duplicated it twice so that I could layer it behind my first image, this was to create a mini-background and to add shading and depth to the first image. With both of my images in which the model is present - I used the "Brightness and Contrast" effect to make images lighter - this way I thought that a more natural look would be present, especially in my second image, as it looks as though Karis is looking up at natural light. Whilst editing both of my model's images, I used the "Quick Selection Tool" to highlight the main body of the image, and deleted the original background, also by using the "Spot Healing Brush Tool" and the "Clone Stamp Tool" to even out her skin and make my model look natural and stunning. This worked well and I am pleased with the outcome of my facial editing! To create the heading, I used urbanfonts.com and used the font "Base 02" as I thought this gave the best effect and rasterized the layer, then I used the "Dodge" and "Burn" Tools to add depth and shadow to the text, this lightened and darkened the text creating a much more unique look that matched my magazine. I then added the 'Drop Shadow', 'Inner Shadow' and the 'Inner Glow' effects through Blending Options to create an even more unique look, I finished by using the "Smudge Tool" and dragging this outwards and inwards through each letter seperately in order to create the ripped and torn effect.

I then added my introduction/sub heading at the top of the page - I overlapped this with my Union Jack, so that the flag acted again as a mini-background, I really like the effect that this has given to the spread and I like the personality and sense of "British-ness" that it has created. I used "Tw Cen MT" as my text, as I thought this look professional but added to my theme within the magazine and made the 'look' that I wanted work! By highlighting key words and making them italics makes this stand out to the reader and this professionalism is good to capture. I added small lines either side of the page, to act as mini-margins/borders just to keep the text in one place, I like this look and think that it adds to the professionalism of my magazine. I also added footers with key information on and another small sub title at the bottom, using the same methods as my main title with the "Smudging Tool" etc.

The final stage of production and editing was to add my textual content onto my spread, I did this my first introducing the interview, I made this stand out by highlighting it all in bold and selecting titles in a different colour. I contrasted my colours between red and black for the interviewer and the interviewee so that it would make it easier for the reader to understand and enjoy the article and as well as making the article look professional and adding to the consistent house style by using the red, blue, white and black colour scheme to match the Union Jack and my model (Karis') t-shirt.I then added quotes from the main body of text (again using urban fonts and the same font as my header to make it consistent) to make a more professional look and to emulate that of real music magazines, I decided to fill the empty spaces as well as overlapping the flag as I like the look that this creates. My final page is below - and I am really happy with my end product!