The Terra Galleria Blog – QT Luong

The Treasured Lands 2019 Calendar was released just a month ago. For this edition of the namesake calendar, we chose to include in the calendar only images that have appeared in the book. Since I strive to visit the national parks in various seasons to capture their changing mood, it was easy to find seasonal images that match precisely each particular month. Like he did for the book, the designer avoided the monotony typical of calendars with a few surprises.

The calendar has a respectable size, actually slightly larger than the book. The printing is better than some of the calendars that have been produced with my images in the past. However, this time we have another printed reference, the Treasured Lands book, and it sets the bar high. The book’s printing is undoubtedly richer with more accurate and vibrant color, and what looks like deeper blacks and better highlight detail. However, the differences are clear only if you were to look at the book and calendar side by side – always an instructive comparison since the only controls are quantities of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks. The quality of the paper contributes significantly to the difference. The edge contrast is also better in the book (this is most noticeable in the Zion photograph) and this could be because I personally sharpened all the files – using Photokit Sharpener – whereas for the calendar this was left to the publisher and printer. Applying sharpening for print is not intuitive: with the proper amount for the printed page, the image on screen looks over-sharpened.

Regardless of its printing limitations, the calendar is an economical way to bring the national parks to the walls of your home or office, and they make for affordable gifts at a street price of about $10. Like in previous years, I do not sell the calendars, but copies may be ordered on Amazon.