Magazine Recreation

In order to improve my Photoshop skills, I decided to recreate an example regional magazine. I chose Suffolk magazine as I found it to maintain many generic conventions of a magazine, allowing me to exercise my ability to use these conventions, therefore improving my ability to create a professional magazine when it comes to my final product.


I decided to use my own images within the recreation, as I believe it would challenge me, rather than using the exact same image, which would simplify the process. The use of this challenge allowed me to improve my skills further, and mimicked the way I would create my final product with my own images. The only image I used from the internet was the pumpkins as I was unable to take my own  similar image.


I decided to stick with the theme of animals in nature in my recreation, therefore I used an image of my own dog at the beach. Like the animal in the picture, I placed my own animal centre, covering at least two-thirds of the front cover. I use the text tool, predominantly, in order to copy the text from the original magazine. When creating the text, it was mainly white, however, I used the eye dropper tool when adding the yellow features, to attempt to keep the colours and magazines as similar as possible.


I thought that the use of tagline above the masthead looked considerably effective, so would consider using this in my final product. I also really liked the way the website was pasted above the masthead, as the audience will be able to see it when they observe the front cover. I believe I will use this technique as I will be creating a website alongside my magazine that I would like my audience to view.


I made use of the magic wand tool when editing my images of my lower left-hand model and the pumpkins, I rasterized both image layers and used the magic wand tool to expel the area around the image that I did not require. I then pasted both images of a similar size in a similar position in order to copy the original magazine. I selected similar fonts within the bottom of the magazine. I then took an image of a barcode, and copied the price within a similar font to replicate the original.


One thing I believe I could've improved was the white text against the white fur in my recreation. Evidently this was not a problem with the original, as the colour tones in the image were ultimately different, however, within my magazine this made the text difficult to read. I know for future reference not to overlap similar colours as this prevents the image from being as eye-catching and makes the text difficult to read.


Conclusively, I am particularly happy with the outcome of my magazine recreation and believe it has made me more skilled and confident for when it comes to creating m final product.