Skills Development

Skill Development: Any work-related learning or training activity that results in enhanced skills, knowledge and ability to perform a job.
Skill Development refers to the art of mastering an art form, and perfecting and mastering it to a point where the skill can be maintained through practice and persistant hard work. With maintaining a skill development of that skill must be able to be applied, to improve the skill to make it the best it can be.
When I originally started the AS course, we had to produce a Preliminary Task. This had to be a school magazine and was extremely basic. I didn't attempt to learn new skills, I just used the ones I was already familiar with.

However, when I began to develop my magazine, I started to experiment with different tools to attempt to perfect my magazine. I started with the magic wand tool to cut around the images I had taken, and then moved on the feather tool to smooth these images. This was not something I did in the preliminary task, and by doing this it made images look more professional, like those in a real magazine.
I also experimented with tools such as the blur tool and the sponge tool to take out darker and lighter areas, for when the spot healing tool was too harsh on certain areas.

I also tried to experiment with vanishing point to create a page which had a 3D effect to look like a room, and despite being able to maintain this skill, I wasn't very keen on the effect afterwards, and for this reason I did not use it in my magazine.

Another tool I used, which was actually successful, was the Liquifying tool, this allowed me to manipulate my models face to slightly alter their appearance, after some practice I was able to do this successfully and used it in a range of my images including the cover image.

I also developed skills within Adobe Premiere when I created my Planning Documentary and Final Evaluation. I was able to edit my voiceover and piece in images and videos on me creating my work, I was also able to edit the way these faded and the effects that were in the video. This was extremely hard but as I practiced I was able to extend my knowledge and maintain this throughout the project, these skills will also help me throughout the A2 coursework.