Construction Post 5: Digipak post-production

To create our digi-pak album we used Adobe Photo-shop. This was my first time using photo-shop so I learnt lots of new skills and improved from having no prior knowledge of how to photo-shop images.

Me using photo-shop

Below is the template for our album cover:

Our template

When designing and creating our panels we had to keep the following in mind:

• The green space was for the photo itself
• The blue space was for only text to spill over into
• The red space was the 'bleed' line where anything in it would get cut off when printing so should only have background over spill - not anything of importance in it.

Our digi-pak was the most changeable element of the project and was more time consuming than expected. We had to decide on which shot we wanted on which panel. We were able to begin editing the back outside panel straight away after our first promo shoot as we had a suitable shot. We had to wait until the re-shoot to get a suitable photo for the front outside panel after incorporating the target audience feedback of not having glitter on my face. For the inside front panel we have continued the glitter theme but have a brighter colour theme to show GiGi's more bubbly 'girl-next-door' characteristics. Our idea for the back inside panel was originally having small pictures of GiGi running around where the CD would be to create ideas of female entrapment in circles of control in society. However, the photos did not look how we wanted them to so we changed our idea to match the inside front panel.

Below illustrates what our album looks like:

The outside digi-pak panels

Our inside digi-pak panels

We have created synergy and branding through the use of the same GiGi font on our different marketing platforms and have continued the black, white and purple colour theme which we agreed on in pre-production.

Below is an enlarged image of the breakdown of layers of the outside panels and some of the editing tools:

Layers and tools

Two key tools (the first two under the heading adjustments) were brightness and levels:

Brightness Adjustment

Brightness = allowed me to change how light or dark I wanted an image to appear. This was useful because if I looked too washed out in the image I could lower the brightness and increase the contrast to counteract this.

Levels = allowed me to make the colours look richer- like in Premier Pro.

Levels adjustment

The ability to see the different layers was beneficial as it allowed me to make sure I was working on the correct one. I learnt how to quickly duplicate layers by pressing Ctrl and J.



Below is the main photo-shop tool bar and highlighted are the tools I mainly used:

The main tool bar

• I learnt how to add text through using the text tool to add institutional information for example.
• I learnt how to use the quick select and magic wand tools to select the main part of the image before putting it onto the new background.
• I used the move, hand and zoom tool to move efficiently around in photo-shop
• I learnt how important the refine edge tool was in ensuring that the edge of the image was smooth and didn't have any of the background in it- a key example of where this was used can be seen in the image below:

Part of the back panel after the application of the refine edge tool

A key technique I learnt was how to use the spot healing brush and healing brush tool:

Healing tools

The spot healing brush allowed me to get rid of spots and being able to change the size of it to make the the improvement unnoticeable.

How to change the size of the spot healing tool

The healing brush tool was also useful as it allowed me to smooth out the texture of my skin.

Target Audience Feedback

I spoke to Biri again during construction of the outside panels of the digi-pak and her feedback can be seen below:

The new track listing colours

• Thought that the use of glitter would appeal greatly to the younger teenage target audience
• Noticed the synergy of the GiGi logo
• The institutional conventions at the bottom of the back panel made the album cover look realistic and conventional

• The purple used was darker than in the website - therefore we adapted the website colouring
• Didn't think the use of rainbow font for the track listing matched GiGi's character - so we changed them to different shades of purple.

The image of the track listing (on the right) illustrates how we heeded our target audience advice and feedback and improved our digi-pak.

During construction I showed members of our secondary target audience our album cover and their feedback can be seen below can be seen below:

Secondary Target Audience Feedback

It has also been very helpful to receive teacher feedback throughout the construction period, an example of which can be seen below:

Teacher feedback

Tertiary Target Audience feedback:

• Purple colour theme is eye catching and noticed it across all three media products
• Liked how there was a MCU and a long shot on the outside panels
• The shades of purple for the track listing are very attractive
• Looks very professional with the institutional information which makes it look conventional
• Front inside panel picture is fresh and young looking and would appeal to the primary target audience
• Noticed the continuation of the glitter on the inside and the Suffragette colours

We quickly dealt with our final snags such as using the burn tool to remove the white background around GiGi on the inside and outside panels and choosing a distribution company- RCA ( a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment)- which we chose because we found that it was conventional for small indie record labels such as our Glass Ceiling Records to use an external larger distribution company- commonly subsidiaries of the 'Big Three'. Overall, I am very pleased with our final digi-pak.