Constructing the Front Cover in Photoshop

To construct my Front Cover I used Adobe Photoshop CS5, this technology allows me to edit photos and then insert text and other features on top e.g. Masthead and a bar code. The layers allow me to move features around so that they are either underneath or on top of other features.

I opened a new Photoshop document in size A4 to meet the requirements of my brief.

I then inserted some text for my Masthead because it is a conventional feature of Print Magazines. I made the text a big enough size so that it filled the width of the A4 page.

I then chose to make my typeface longer rather than wider so that it took up a sufficient amount of room as a typical Masthead would i.e. approx a fifth of the page.

I then added the other part of my magazine title within my other text, because I saw it done on the cover of Entertainment Weekly (see below) and took inspiration from that, as I don't think it is commonly done but I thought it looked better than "The Jazz Singer" all on one line.

Then I opened up my chosen image that I wanted to put on the front cover so that I could edit it appropriately.

I have opened my own original image in Photoshop and started by duplicating the image so that it had a background layer and then started editing the photo by using the spot healing brush tool to clear any blemishes on my model's face.

I then chose to use the blur tool selecting Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur to enable me to edit my photo and enhance my model's skin.

I adjusted the Gaussian Blur to a suitable level so that I could still see the outline of her silhouette, but the skin appeared softer and completely unblemished due to the blurring of the skin tone, it appears less grainy and more porcelain.

I then added a layer to the duplicate to allow me to edit the eyes, mouth and other features.

Then I used the Brush tool to erase away the blurriness around the model's eye, mouth and other key features i.e. nails, nose, eyebrows and pearls on her dress.

This is the finished image after the editing that I did.

I then opened up my image of glitter to use as a background for my Masthead, an idea which I got from looking at a past issue of InStyle magazine. (see below)

Then I added the glitter background to my masthead and changed the colour of my font to white, which is still a conventional colour to be used within magazines. 

I created a bar code using http://www.barcodesinc.com/generator/index.php this website allowed me to type in some text and generate a bar code from it and inserts it onto the bar code. I put the issue no. 054 and the price £3.40, allowing me to incorporate three typical magazine features together into one.

I then selected all, copied and pasted it onto my background. I then selected Edit>Transform>Shift and held down the shift key while adjusting the size of my bar code so that the length and width stayed within the same proportion. I made it a suitable size to fit into a bottom corner of my magazine.

Then I selected Edit>Transform>Rotate to turn it 90 degrees so it was portrait rather than landscape.

After saving my Masthead as a JPEG file using the Snipping Tool (as seen above) I opened it up in Photoshop to allow me to select only the Masthead.

I then used the Masthead to insert it onto my original background and then selected Edit>Transform>Scale to make it smaller and then rotate it to have a smaller copy of it on my bar code. I did this because I had seen it other magazine for example on the cover of InStyle. (as previously mentioned above)  

I moved my Masthead text down slightly to incorporate room for a Skyline, enabling me to add another smaller feature to my magazine in another way other than a left third.

Then I added my edited main feature photo to then be able to add text around my model's face.

I then added my own original image of glitter to put behind my masthead text, then I changed the colour of my Masthead to purple to allow me to create a house style throughout the remainder of my contents page and double page spread. I also change the small Masthead on the bar code and the colour of the Skyline feature.

I then started to add all of my text like the left third and the main feature headline, because these are the conventional features of a magazine.

I moved my bar code to the other side of my magazine so that I could move the main feature headline further towards the right and make it bigger to make it completely obvious to the reader that it is the main feature of the magazine. I also edited the size of the text in the left third so that it was suitable considering they are the smaller features of the magazine. I also changed the colour of part of my main feature headline and a line in my left third to fit in with the house-style.

I then changed the font of main feature headline and added a quote to act as anchorage to draw in readers. I selected Edit>Transform>Skew to edit the quote text and make it look italic, which I think is a suitable way to represent that text because it has been taken from the body text of my double page spread.

I then selected all of the text items in my left third and selected Edit>Transform>Scale to adjust the size of them equally. I made it longer and narrower so that the text didn't cut across the main feature photo.

I aligned the main feature headline centrally to draw the reader's eyes into the middle where the text and photo of the main feature are.

Then to finish off my Front Cover I moved the left third text more towards the right so that there is a suitable amount of room around the edges of my magazine. I also moved the bar code back to the right of the cover so that there isn't too much on the left side. I finished off by adding a dateline above the left third, a conventional feature of magazines, I used an even smaller font because it isn't a very important detail of the magazine, but I felt it still needs to be featured.