Cover layout decisions

& Photoshop

Front Cover Flat plan vs Final Product

I began the production of my front cover by getting

my mast head the right size and in the right place going across the top of the page. I used a horizontal guideline to position the two words perfectly in line with each

other. As these words were taken from ‘dafont’ I had to

delete the blank white section around the words leaving just the letters in

black. Initially the masthead was quite big.

Here you can see that after I added my main image the

white areas around the words were visible. After realising this I used the

magic wand tool to select these small areas to delete.

Here you can see how I have manipulated the

image to make it brighter and more visually appealing

to the audience. I used a tool called ‘levels’ to do this

(Ctrl+L). I adjusted the amount of darkness and

light as well as the contrast to balance the image as a

whole. This wasn’t the final image that I used however, I

did initially use this one.

I decided to change my image and as you can see from the bottom image that it has been adjusted. At first I tried to cut out the background of the image as you can see in

the first picture. I used the magic wand tool to select the areas before deleting them.

However, it didn’t turn out how it was supposed to and so I decided to leave that and simply adjust the levels of the whole image. This created an even background without having to cut the model out and

making it look unrealistic. I also moved the image and masthead apart slightly.

light

dark

contrast

I decided to change the colour of the word ‘pop’ as I

wanted it to stand out to my target audience. This

also immediately indicates that it’s a pop magazine. I

double clicked on the layer so I could adjust the layer style. I changed the colour overlay and selected the pink colour from the top

that the model was wearing. I decided that this pink would also be one of

my feature colours.

Following my flat plan, I added the name of my

artist along with the quote to go underneath it. I

double clicked to change the layer style. I changed

the colour to blue and also added a bevel and emboss to give it more dimension. I added an inner shadow too.

I didn’t think that the other font suited a pop magazine

very well because in pop magazines simple, bold

fonts are used. I used the same font as ‘pop’ in the masthead but this time I didn’t delete the white

areas on the inner part of the letters. I added a blue

and pink drop shadow.

Again I changed the main image of the model as I felt that this one better suited a pop magazine. This is because the pose is quite girly and fun and relates better to my target audience. I have used a vertical guide to make sure that the image is centred perfectly. I then adjusted the levels as you can see in the image on the right. I changed the

darkness and contrast.