Photographing the World 3 Advanced Cityscapes

Back in 2014, Fstoppers teamed up with landscape photographer Elia Locardi to produce two unique photography tutorials titled Photographing the World. In the first tutorial, Photographing The World: Landscape Photography and Post-Processing, Elia set out to build an introductory course that explores both his on-location shooting techniques along with his sophisticated post processing. In the second tutorial, Photographing the World: Cityscape, Astrophotography, and Advanced Post-Processing, Elia switches gears by photographing some of the world's most beautiful cityscapes as well as introducing much more complex editing techniques in Photoshop.

We are excited to announce that the world wide journey continues with Photographing the World III! In this tutorial, Elia explores his favorite country, Italy, as well as two of the largest mega cities in the world, New York City and Dubai. Building upon the first two Photographing the World series, part III explores more advanced editing techniques as well as unique capturing methods in the field. Elia finds himself capturing stars in a city, dealing with harsh weather, scouting towns he has never previously visited, gaining access to unique rooftop views, using tilt shift lenses and Gigapan hardware, and even capturing the magnificant fog of Dubai. If you have been waiting for our next adventure with Elia Locardi, welcome to Photographing the World III!

Meet Elia

Elia Locardi is an internationally acclaimed professional travel photographer, Fujifilm Global Ambassador, writer, public speaker and highly experienced educator who spends his life shooting some of the most beautiful locations in the world. Location independent since March of 2012, he and his wife live a 100% mobile lifestyle, perpetually traveling from country to country, continuously circling the globe. Since he began traveling full-time in 2009, he has visited more than 55 countries and flown almost two million miles.

Using a combination of traditional in-camera techniques, targeted times of day, and advanced post-processing methods, Elia has developed a widely recognized and highly unique style of travel photography. With each photograph, his goal is to share his vision so others can see the world as he does, full of color, texture, depth and emotion. Fstoppers is excited to team up with Elia to share even more of his advanced photography process as we transition out of the natural landscape world and into some of the world's most incredible man made cities and wonders. 

Learn Photography On Location

As with every tutorial in the Photographing the World series, Elia takes you across the globe and shares with you the real world shooting situations he deals with out in the field. Each lesson begins with an in depth exploration of the location being photographed.  This means Elia walks you through all of his scouting tips, how he composes his camera, the lighting challenges he is faced with, and all of the technical camera settings he uses for a particular location. Not only are you able to see how the lighting and weather changes throughout the shoot, but you also get a one on one view into the process Elia uses to capture his raw files in the field. By watching Elia work through each of his photographers, you will be able to learn how to master all of the techniques needed to capture your own travel photos at the highest quality. 

Master Post Production and Complex Photo Editing

Once you have captured the files out on location, only half of the process is complete. Elia then takes you into the post production studio and shares all of the intricate steps he takes to turn his images from a perfectly captured snapshot into a world class piece of art. It is here that you will learn how Elia pulls the most out of his raw files and how to adjust color and tonality so your images pop off the screen. As with all of our tutorials, Photographing the World III starts of pretty simple but quickly builds up in complexity. As a forewarning, if you are not proficient in Photoshop you might want to start with Elia's most basic tutorial Photographing the World: Landscapes. In this tutorial, some of the topics covered are advanced panoramic stitching, creating illuminosity masks from scratch, replacing skies in complex scenes, advanced time blending, difficult object removal, and building Photoshop actions to help speed up your workflow. 

Unlike previous tutorials where Elia has used 3rd party plugins to achieve his signature look, in Photographing the World 3 everything is done entirely with Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. This allows you to understand how you too can get the most out of the industry's two most used pieces of software without having to rely on extra plugins that might require extra money and constant updates. 

The Post-processing methods used in this tutorial are as non-destructive as possible using a combination of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom. With precision and the highest quality output in mind, every technique learned can be applied using a fast and efficient 100% manual workflow that relies on no third party plug-ins. Whether you’re showing your work in an online portfolio or preparing images for high resolution printing, this workflow is designed to help empower you to get the highest quality and most seamless results possible. 

Elia has become widely known for a process he calls ‘Blending Moments in Time,’ where he takes a series of photos captured all the way through sunset and blue hour and combines them together into one seamless image. This process is designed to encapsulate the entire memory of a location, from the vividness of an epic sunset, to the beautiful soft artificial lights of a city or town. This workflow is designed to show students how they can achieve this same world class and unique look for themselves. And though it is a highly digital process, Elia walks you through step-by-step and shows you how easy and fun post-processing can be. 

Learn Advanced Panoramic Stitching

Nothing captures the expanse horizon of a mega city like Dubai better than a stiched pano image. Throughout this tutorial, Elia shows you some of his most valuable techniques for capturing multiple images and seamlessly stitching them into a single, mega high resolution panoramic photograph. Wether you find yourself needing to drop in a sky replacement, blend moments in time, or remove foreground obstructions, Elia's lessons on panoramic photography will give you the tools to capture as much detail as possible while showcasing the largest field of view possible.

What’s included in the Digital Download:

• 18 Hours of Video Content (1080p, 23.9fps, H.264 mpg4, over 25GB of material)
• 14 On Location and Studio Post-processing Lessons
• Full RAW files and companion software catalogs so you can follow along (Lightroom catalogs and Photoshop PSDs)
• 13 Behind the Scenes episodes of our experiences traveling and filming this incredible project
• Private Elia Facebook Group access for extended education and photo sharing

What's Covered in this Tutorial

• In-Camera Photography Techniques (ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture, White Balance, etc)
• Overview of ideal lenses and gear for Cityscape and Astrophotography
• Examples of New Lightweight Tripods, Clamps, and Accessories
• Extensive Location Scouting and Tips for better composition, angles, and vantage points
• How To Set Up Precise Camera Gear to Capture Hard to Work With Shooting Locations
• Advanced Panoramic Photography Shooting and Stitching
• GigaPano Multi-Row Panoramic Shooting and Stitching 
• Working in Urban Environments and Proper Gear Setup and Control
• Solid Neutral Density Filters and Softening Skies and Water
• How to Use Smart Phone Apps to Precisely Plan Your Night and Astro-Photography
• Capturing Stars and Star Trails Over Urban Environments
• Understanding and Mastering Light (Golden Hour, Blue Hour, Sunrise and Sunset, and Astro)
• Time Blending (combining exposures shot at different times)
• Bracketing and Multiple Exposure Blending 
• 100% Manual Exposure Blending using Zero HDR Software
• Blending Different Moments in Time Together (Blending Different Times of Day Seamlessly)
• Non-Destructive Techniques to Master RAW Processing
• Extensive Non-Destructive Color Correction and Image Adjustment
• Complex Selections and Masking Techniques
• How to Create and Work With Luminosity Masking Techniques
• Advanced Luminosity Masking
• Compound Channel Masking for Precision Selections and Color Corrections
• Advanced Object Removal and Image Cleanup 
• How to Replace Skies and Add Depth and Drama to Existing Ones
• Precision Sharpening and Selective Noise Reduction 

The Longest Behind the Scenes Series Yet

Fstoppers started off our behind the series back in 2014 during Elia Locardi's first tutorial (watch them here). This time around the cameras literally never stopped rolling resulting in more wanderlust and shenanigans than ever before. Clocking in at over 3 hours, Photographing the World 3 includes 13 brand new episodes spanning the course of this tutorial.