My first Tanzanian Umbalite Garnet

[q8peridot]

I have been looking for a red garnet for sometime and got this from a IG seller, and wanted to get your thoughts on it.

I'm fairly new to buying colored gemstone and have bought only 5 gemstones out of which only one was accurately presented by the seller. The umbalite which is 7.5 carats is my most recent purchase.


these 3 are screenshot from the vid posted by the seller. I loved the purplish red color as it was exactly what I was looking for.


These are my pics and I'm good at taking pics but its seems I suck at taking gemstone pics, still I'd say that the garnet is most accurately described as meeting half way between these two pics. Or you can think of it as the vendors pics plus two stops darker.

 

[glitterata]

Large red garnets tend to be dark. Sellers tend to present the best, brightest photos and not to show how the stone will look in darker situations. So in real life, it may look like the seller's photo in, say, bright outdoor light, but not indoors.

I don't think the seller was being deceptive, since one of your photos looks like their photos. But if you don't like the stone and the seller takes returns, send it back.

 

[q8peridot]

Large red garnets tend to be dark. Sellers tend to present the best, brightest photos and not to show how the stone will look in darker situations. So in real life, it may look like the seller's photo in, say, bright outdoor light, but not indoors.

I don't think the seller was being deceptive, since one of your photos looks like their photos. But if you don't like the stone and the seller takes returns, send it back.

I totally agree with the seller trying to present the best photo. I also wasn't implying that the seller was being deceptive. I was merely trying to present a comparison between the sellers and my pics. Some sellers do a better job than others in this regard.

I remember this issue with my first purchase, I was taking a picture for the seller to present the difference between his pics and what I got. My camera was actually presenting a very different image than what I was seeing.

So I guess you can say it's simply to provide everyone an idea of what to expect when they see certain pictures online.

 

[helphelp911]

I found the only way to get "better" pictures is keep asking them send you video / pictures in different lighting conditions. Inside, outside, bright, low light, no flash, etc. Then you will have a better ideas how the gem perform in different lighting so less surprise.

Garnet tends to darker and the bigger become the darker because of the depth.