Final Skills Audit

Name: John Dinsdale  Tutor group: 1.30    Date: 15/4/2013

Photographic Skills

Which of the following photographic features/equipment have you used on a camera before:

Feature	Yes	No	Comments if yes – where have you completed this skills and to what level
Manual Focus features	Y		This has been used for several of the photoshoots featured in my blog. I had some previous experience with this skill but have fine tuned through practice. For example my shot are now in proper focus and i can work with eye lines.
Shutter Speed	Y		This has been used in the shutter speed write-up on my blog. Again i had a rough idea of this at the start of the year, i have gotten better at working with low and high shutter speeds. This includes light and motion based imagery.
Aperture control	Y		Apparture control write-up in my blog. At the start of the year i didn’t know how to use this feature. I am still not perfect with this technique as higher apertures have longer shutter speeds that can easily be ruined.
Continuous Shoot	Y		This is present in the continuous shoot blog write-up. I have used this mode to create images using bubbles and motion to create sequences of images as they happen.
A tripod	Y		This was used during the aperture control photoshoot. It was used to reduce motion blur and aid steadiness whilst taking photos with larger apertures and shutter speeds.
External flash	Y		This was used during the photoshoot in the forms of softboxes and bottles to create external light in the photographs taken.
Self timer facility		N	I have not used this.
Light meter		N	I have not used this
Composition grids	Y		I have used this when demonstrating eyelines in my earlier photoshoots present on my blog. I have used this when using the rule of three. I have used eyelines to create power in photos.

Photoshop Skills

Which of the following features of Photoshop have you used before:

Feature	Yes	No	Comments if yes – where have you completed this skills and to what level
Text control	Y		I have used this when experimenting with front covers in both my final project and blog write-ups. I already had experience with this technique and now know several other techniques for text manipulation.
Filters	Y		I experimented with filters throughout my final project but could not find a correct filter to use. I had used these before media and have more experience using them.
Brushes	Y		CD cover project in my blog. I used custom downloaded brushes to create a CD cover for a fictional band named Natures Heroes. I now know how to download and install brushes on photoshop.
Layers	Y		I have used this for every photoshop document I have created. I had already used this before media but have much more experience with it.
Opacity control	Y		I have used this in the production of my final product.  I used it to fade the colour of layers to tone down the colour of them.
Shape creation	Y		I have used this for the magazine front cover of my final product to create breakout boxes and sell lines. I can create and fill coloured rectangles/circles to create headers.
Brightness and contrast control	Y		I have used this countless times on most of the photos present in my blog entrees. I have used it before media but now know how to better use it for better effects.
Gradients	Y		I have used this feature briefly on my final front cover piece. I used it to edit colours on the image itself.
Load selection features	Y		I have used this to open downloaded brushes and fonts when creating front covers and the CD cover design task in my blog.
Feathering	Y		This was used as part of the subtle techniques blog entry and is used alongside effects such as vignetting.
Colour curves adjustment	Y		This was used as part of the subtle techniques blog entry again used alongside techniques such as vignetting and feathering.
Resolution setting control	Y		I have used this when creating every photoshop document I have produced. This has including setting the magazine cover dimensions and DPI.
Magnetic lasso, polygon lasso tool	Y		I have used this when creating front covers and adding effects to images throughout my blog. I have used this tool to select certain areas that I can then add effects to.
Cropping tool	Y		I had already used this effect before media and have continued to use it to get rid of annoying backgrounds and choose selected parts of images.
Clone tool	Y		I have used this in the vampire/spot healing blog entry where I have tried to clear up a spotty girls face using the clone stamp tool and choosing clear skin to replace the spots.
Retouch tool		N	I have not used this.
Other skills			-       Used the sponge and burn tools to create the vampire lady in my blog.

In Design Skills

Which of the following features of In Design have you used before:

Feature	Yes	No	Comments if yes – where have you completed this skills and to what level
Margin and column guide creation	Y		I have used this when creating my final DPS for unit 3 as I had to create columns and margins to the dimensions of my selected magazine.
Inserting an image ID	Y		I have used this when creating any DPS in my blog and final piece. I have inserted these images using layers and the place tool.
Resizing images in ID	Y		I have done this in all DPS documents by using the white arrow tool on selected images.
Text manipulation – resizing, rotation	Y		I used this to alter and edit text for headers and sub-headers when creating my DPS’s for blog entries and my final piece.
Text manipulation – controlling kerning and leading	Y		I have used this to control the distances between lines of text in my final double page spread.
Text flow creation	Y		I have used this skill when creating my columns and adding the text into these columns so that when editing the text for these columns I can do them all at once. This again this is present in all my DPS’s.
Using transparent imagery in ID	Y		I used this to create backgrounds for my DPS’s by creating PNG files that can be transported and inserted into photoshop.
Shape/line creation In design	Y		I have used the shape creation tool to create extra frames for photos and create the polaroid effect border for images in the DPS.
Exporting to PDF from In-design	Y		This was used to export my final piece for marking and export.
Text Wrap	Y		I have used this when creating my disability article DPS in my blog. I used this to wrap text and an extra image in the centre of the page.
Other Skills

Number of new skills achieved: 28

(compare with your initial skills assessment)