How do you determine the quality of a diamond from an online pic?

[lalala]

So I've been looking at the "brighter" images but I've noticed a lot of people recommending darker images on here. I also read that a well cut diamond will face up dark under a lot of light...

The image below shows a bright diamond on the left and a dark diamond on the right (I apologize they aren't face on as I was trying to screenshot them while moving)... my question is, do I look for the darker diamonds or brighter?

**edited by moderator, please upload images to forum directly**

 

[John P]

Videos are nice for gaining some general impression of faceting and transparency (given a clean diamond and appropriate focal-depth). Videos are not useful for meaningful judgments of color or tone. They are not decisive for judgments of eye-clean. The "brighter or darker" differences you mention - even in the same setup - may be affected, day to day, by variable strength of lighting, age of the bulb or tubes, and especially by camera white-balance/exposure settings.

Don't get me wrong: Videos are useful for getting an impression of overall aesthetics as it relates to faceting, transparency and contrast-pattern (if the obstruction metric is conventional, which it is in the images you linked).

I also read that a well cut diamond will face up dark under a lot of light...

Irrelevant here. That has to do with exposure to outdoors and sunlight, where the diamond is 'seeking' multiple light sources, but finding only the sun - which sub-tends light at only 1/2 a degree over a 180-degree hemisphere. Or, said more simply... Any profound darkness you see in these video captures isn't related to nature. It's a function of that proportions-set reflecting the dark camera lens in that specific closed photo setup.

 

[rockysalamander]

Since both are from the same vendor, look at the background color. The one on the right is noticeably darker than the one on the left. I use those backgrounds to help calibrate my eyes to some extent with JA. But, I totally agree with @John Pollard. I would add that in addition to the effects of the photo/lighting, human eyes see light differently than a camera and the individual ability to detect color variation varies widely.

If you want to get a sense of the body color, have a look at the side.

E color


H cvolor

 

[lalala]

Irrelevant here. That has to do with exposure to outdoors and sunlight, where the diamond is 'seeking' multiple light sources, but finding only the sun - which sub-tends light at only 1/2 a degree over a 180-degree hemisphere.

I was unsure if it was any/all light or specifically sunlight so thank you for the clarification.

 

[lalala]

Since both are from the same vendor, look at the background color. The one on the right is noticeably darker than the one on the left. I use those backgrounds to help calibrate my eyes to some extent with JA. But, I totally agree with @John Pollard. I would add that in addition to the effects of the photo/lighting, human eyes see light differently than a camera and the individual ability to detect color variation varies widely.

If you want to get a sense of the body color, have a look at the side.

Glad you mentioned the backgrounds - I wasn't even paying attention to that! Thank you. So is that just different camera settings and/or lighting?

Side note: That was a poor example on my part (comparing an E and H) as I asking about the brightness/darkness of the image not the color difference between an E and H diamond.

I was only clicking on the brighter images because I thought that it meant the diamond had better light return. I wasn't clicking on the darker images at all. So should I be considering both?

Here is a better example both G VS2:



*Note: I'm not looking at either of these diamonds to purchase, just using them for an example.

 

[rockysalamander]

They are just lite differently. The background is the same base, but you can see the one on the left is very strongly lite from the front. The one on the left is more like how BlueNile lites all their stones.

Since JA does not have most of their diamonds in-house, they are 'virtual', I assume (pure guess here) that they work with vendors to take video with their own 'look'. The backgrounds are all the same, but they are lite a bit different among different vendors. So, you are seeing the result of that.

I will say that human inclination will be to judge the brighter lite one better, if that was the only information you have available. I have to fight my own tendency and I know that is a photographic effect!

 

[lalala]

@rockysalamander Thank you. Yup, I'm having a hard time looking at the others. My eyes are drawn to the brighter images!