Magazine Cover.

The magazine cover used basic photoshop skills, with a few effects that gave it a finishing touch.  The main techniques I used was just cutting around original images and placing them to a suitable position.  I also found myself using the rubber tool on a low opacity quite a lot, removing access outlines and making layers blend together more smoothly.  I used the text effect for the titles and subtitles, making sure I gave the text some inner glow, and outside glow to make it look 3D and just generally more effective.  The magazine took about 2 weeks to complete, not as long as I'd expect but I think this because a lot of work went into the original band image to go on the front which you see in a different post. 

First of all, I opened the template as a A4, the original size for a magazine cover, and I pasted my edited band photo onto the layer.  I made sure not to fix this to the background as I knew I'd later have to move it about, and maybe even resize it.  I left it in a position I thought would be good, I then went to Google images.  I wanted to find a pattern I could use as the background of my magazine cover, it couldn't be nothing too bright, it had to be stylish, yet subtle.  I didn't want really any attention going towards this as it was not important at all, but it needed to be classy in order to maintain a stylish feel.  I went for this black wallpaper type pattern as you can see below.  I then moved this layer behind the band photo and cut around the band using the pen tool.  When I was happy, I fixed the pattern to the background, because I knew I wouldn't later have to move this.

After this was done, I wanted to add the text that would stand out the most.  The text would be my band name ''Working Class Kings''.  I used a big strong font for this as I needed it to almost jump out of the page, I can't remember the name of the font I used but it was from the website http://www.dafont.com/ and was under the theme of ''Fixed Width.''  It needed to be different, but still be easily read.  I tried a few colours such as red and light blue, but it didn't flow with the black and white image below, so I settled on white.  I added some inner glow, and a little emboss to make the text look almost 3D.  I really liked the text I settled with as it stood out, but it wasn't complicated.  I couldn't for example; use calligraphy or text with tails or patterns.

I needed to add some more text to the main part of the cover, it was a subtitle in a way.  I kept the font exactly the same, I just made it a little less noticable.  Instead of being bright in-your-face white, I made it a bit less opaque, thus resulting in it going almost grey.  It's still easy to read as it looks shiny, and bold, but it's just not as noticeable, exactly what I wanted.

I'd rather people look at the magazine, see the band and then see the ''exclusive talks with''.  It's obvious the main selling point of a magazine needs to be the bit that grabs the viewers attention, and although some might argue that the fact the magazine contains ''exclusive talks'' is the main selling point, I'd argue it's the band that is.  If I saw a magazine with a band I really liked, I'd pick it up.  I wouldn't pick up a magazine that just said ''exclusive talks'' as it could be exclusive talks with an artist I really disliked.  But anyway, I kept the font at the same angle and placed it just on top of the first sentence.  As you can see in the screen shot, I used drop shadow, inner shadow, bevel and emboss, color overlay, gradient overlay, and stroke.  I didn't use pattern overlay in the end.

The next thing I did to create my magazine cover was the seperate the page into different parts.  I added some blue/white gradient at the top.  I did this by cutting away the original background pattern using the pen tool.  I then pasted the originial NME logo onto the top and put it into place.  I usually use the transform (ctrl + t) to move and resize and it's quick and simple.  I also deleted the pattern at the bottom of the page.  I don't know why I decided to get rid of the original pattern, but I think it was mainly to seperate the sections of the magazine and make it obvious different parts had different content. 

 Next, I completed the bottom of the page.  I looked at other magazines, particularly NME and focused on what type of content they had at the bottom of the page.  It was usually a free giveaway or something  which would entice the reader to buy / read more of the magazine.  I decided to go with ''EMINEM'S NEW UK TOUR?'' as I felt this would entice many readers of music magazines.  I found an image of Eminem and resized him to fit the small section at the bottom right of the page.  I made sure I didn't cut round him perfectly, instead, giving a ragged edge effect, I don't know why I did this, but I think it looks good, and fits with the flow of the magazine.  It also acts as a type of a border.  I used the same text as before, duplicating the layer, I just removed all shadows and overlays.  I didn't want this text to be as big and bold as the text above as it was somewhat less important.  I kept it simple and plain and easy to read though. 

After this, I wanted to add a free giveaway aswell, just for extra insentive to purchase the magazine.  Again, I wanted to put this at the bottom.  I wanted another background for this little section to make it clear it was different content.  I used a red ball.  I made this by selecting the Elliptical Marquee Tool and making a sphere shape.  I then cut away the shape, filled it with red overlay, and added some inner shadow.  This made it looks 3D, infact, more 3D than the rest of it.  I then added some different stlye text using the text tool, and added a small image of some tickets.  I got this image from Google again, and it involved the easy process of cutting, and merging.  At this point, I changed my main text I did earlier to red, to flow with the red of the NME title, and the red ball at the bottom, I think it looked really good.

The final piece didn't take much more.  I used the same technique I've already used just to fill the gaps.  For example cutting around original images, removing the access and merging layers together.  Adding text, rotating, replacing and adding shadows and overlays.  Changing backgrounds via lower layers and fixing them down.  I did use a the paint tool a bit to create a blood effect on the page, this was to tye in with the red and black theme, but really, it was just to fill space.  Below is the final image of my magazine cover.