COLOR GRADES ONLINE: can we see them?

[valeria101]

I can''t believe that there isn''t a decent line-up of diamond color grades anywhere on Pricescope YET!

Yes, we have that D versus I picture and several long threads showing various color grades ONE BY ONE. Of course, it is common knowledge that diamonds are particularly good at picking up any color in the surrounding lighting or objects, so the same J color may look white-blue in one picture and fancy yellow in the next. This post is a provocation for a charitable soul to post the much needed graphical reference for future Pricescope debates about "HOW DIFFERENT COLOR GRADES ARE". Of course color grades represent some range of shades, but is there any way one can get a reasonable impression of what exactly he will pay for online? We have the HCA and all those Scopes to debate cut quality, 30X pictures to show clarity to the most worrisome layman, the cost and carat weight are easily written down, but how about color?

I know that demanding an electronic version of the GIA color reference sets is way too optimistic, but a few short years ago cut was in the same boat. How about Color?

 

[diamondlil]

I agree with you, AnA, that we need more in this area. The post showing the D vs. I was a good start. A face-down and face-up lineup of same-size, well-cut stones in each color would do so much to demonstrate the subtle variance in each color grade. My search has turned up illustrations only, no actual photographs.




Diamondlil

 

[strmrdr]

The problem with online color is that no 2 programs show pictures the same.
For example Netscape browsers have different color abilities than Internet Explorer does not to mention Mac which is totaly different.

Then you have the problem of everyone’s monitor being adjusted differently.
I mainly read text and surf with images shut off and do programming/office type work on my computers therefore they are optimized not for color but text.
I do have software to reset it to a more common balance when im designing graphics but not everyone has a $700 software package to do that and the time/skill to set it up.
It can take up to 5-6 hours to properly calibrate a monitor.

Lets say you come up with an easy way to calibrate everyone’s monitors.
Would someone that spent 100+ hours calibrating their monitor to their scanner to their printer to their print service really want to undo it?
They are exactly the people that would see minute differences in color details in a diamond and it would bug them.

 

[valeria101]

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On 12/15/2003 12:05:34 PM strmrdr wrote:


The problem with online color is that no 2 programs show pictures the same.
Then you have the problem of everyone’s monitor being adjusted differently.
----------------

[/quote]
I did not have in mind something THAT scary! After all, even if hopefully noone would hold a diamond towards the screen to grade it (HORROR, NIGHTMARE!!!), the difference between those color grades should be rather well shown. This is precizely why a picture with several color grades lined up would be quite useful, while 10000 separate photos each with one diamond are not. I know that what you escribe is the correct approach, but my request was far more humble. After all, instead of calibrating monitors one could turn the shades of the original picture into numbers, for fun. However, common sense rather than technological sophistication was the point. Honestly, the vast majority of 'theoretical' examples (you know, those silly drawings showing progressively yellow dots instead of color grades) more often make a poor M look like fancy-yellow. Worse still, there are enough such sample photos grossly manipulated out there (I don't want to cite examples now, it is not a polite thing to say). And this on all the monitors I ever seen (five different countries and, say, ten computers in each by now). So, how bad can an honest attempt be?

 

[strmrdr]

you have a good point.
It wouldn’t be perfect but might be better than we have now.
Some times my engineering side kicks in :}

 

[Mara]

Someone posted something in the past. I don't recall from where though. It may have been a copy of a GIA color grading chart or something.




Maybe after the holiday season, Rhino who seems to excel at photograping the H&A stones against the white backgrounds, can line em up (if we can't do D, E, F, G, H, I, J then what about D, F, H, I, J) and snap a few pictures for posting.

 

[DiamondExpert]

Not practical - a lot of work which can be applied to only a relatively small number of stones i.e., those in vendors hands, not those in the vast databases), can't be done accurately and one screw up will bring howls of misrepresentation...not a good position to be in.

 

[valeria101]

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On 12/15/2003 3:34:06 PM DiamondExpert wrote:

Not practical - a lot of work which can be applied to only a relatively small number of stones i.e., those in vendors hands, not those in the vast databases), can't be done accurately and one screw up will bring howls of misrepresentation...not a good position to be in.----------------

Got the point

and the Pic

. Hopefully this issue may get a better solutions once. After all, aren't some of GOG's 'educational diamonds" proving the missmatch between HCA and brilliancescope readings and the sort? Hopefully noone will get the idea to scream "misssreprezzzentation" in that case. To be sure, it is quite a frustrating exercise to convince one guy after another that, after all, those shades of white are not as far apart as the prices may suggest. I haven't even dared tempt anyone with the color grades I love: those outcast P-Rs and all the way to W-Y-Z. Well, maybe one day!

However, my taste is not the point: color seems to be the least well represented of the Cs for diamonds sold online. Isn't it?