what is the best combination to get brilliance AND sparkle

[Sparkle_Girl]

this is for a round brilliant i love sparkle and i really like the bright white of the brilliance.......what is the best way to get the best of both what is the combination..... please.

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 7/23/2008 12:40:19 PM
Author:Sparkle_Girl
this is for a round brilliant i love sparkle and i really like the bright white of the brilliance.......what is the best way to get the best of both what is the combination..... please.

Hi SG!

There are various combos which can give you the performance you want, so it is difficult to say this is THE best one, as beauty is so subject to opinion. However there is a range of proportions which some PSers use and this should help you to find a well balanced diamond which should give you the sparkle and fire you desire.

Use the following as a guide. Some combinations outside of these ranges can still result in a beautiful stone, use the HCA and Idealscope/ vendor recommendations to select.

depth 60 - 62.4% ( which is my preferred cutoff)
table 54 - 57%
crown angle - 34 - 35 degrees
pavilion angle - 40.6 - 41 degrees

* with these angles, check carefully with Idealscope and trusted vendor opinion/ your own eyes to make sure that angles in the shallower ends ( CA 34 - PA 40.6) and steeper ( CA 35 - PA 41) are complementary in that particular diamond.

polish and symmetry - very good and above
girdle - avoid extremes, look for thin to slightly thick, thin to medium etc.

 

[first123]

I''m hoping the answer is buy ACA from WF or any other "super ideal" like superbcerts, GOG H&A and cut by Infinity. I can''t tell you much about dimensions and angle % but I did look at a few Hearts on Fire and they really did out perform other stones I had look at that same day.

 

[jstarfireb]

Date: 7/23/2008 1:24:24 PM
Author: first123
I''m hoping the answer is buy ACA from WF or any other ''super ideal'' like superbcerts, GOG H&A and cut by Infinity. I can''t tell you much about dimensions and angle % but I did look at a few Hearts on Fire and they really did out perform other stones I had look at that same day.

You certainly can''t go wrong by limiting yourself to superideals! HOF stones tend to be overpriced compared to the ones from WF, GOG, or Infinity, which have minimal markup.

Sparkle_Girl, it sounds like your question was really about maximizing brilliance vs fire. I don''t know much about this except that ideal cuts can be classified as either BIC, TIC, or FIC (brilliant, Tolkowsky, or fiery ideal cut) based on the numbers. The "Assessment of Brightness" video here (scroll down to the table) might be helpful. Good luck!

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 7/23/2008 12:40:19 PM
Author:Sparkle_Girl
this is for a round brilliant i love sparkle and i really like the bright white of the brilliance.......what is the best way to get the best of both what is the combination..... please.

Just rereading your post, can you clarify as to what you mean by sparkle? Sparkle can consist of both coloured light ( fire) and white light as well as other components, in my opinion as I said before, a well balanced stone should give you a nice mix of both. Also depending on what you want, a non branded diamond, non H&A, or a nice make of stone- a non superideal for example can still be a beautiful diamond. You could also centre your search around AGS0 and GIA Excellent cut grade to make finding a lovely stone easier, but evaluate especially the GIA Excellents using the cut advisor and Idealscope/ vendor input to find the best out of these.

 

[kcoursolle]

A well-cut TIC will give you the best balance of fire and white light, but if you want the bright white sparkle more, you might want to look for a TIC. Just plug stones into the HCA to find one.

 

[oldminer]

It is very easy to mix the terms up when trying to assist consumers. The word "Sparkle" is one of the non-standard terms often used and misunderstood. In my way of thinking, sparkle pertains to a static measurement taken which is indicative of the diamond''s "potential when in motion" for scintillation. Sparkle derives from the broadening of the range between highest and least light return, measured in fractions of pixels, from the entire image of the diamond. It is not dependent on the judgement of one''s eyes, but on a scientific device.

"Fire" is another term often giving confusion with other terms. One gets differing amounts of visible bits of colored light back from an otherwise coloress diamond. It is the effect of refraction and prisms set up by the faceting angles of the diamond, but it is highly lighting dependent. Without a standardized environemnt the description of fire in one environment can be very different in another lighting scenario. I feel that you always get sufficient fire in a well cut diamond provided the lighting is suitable to create dispersion. Faceted diamonds always have the approriate "fire" for their type. Many fancy cuts have less brilliancy, scintillation, sparkle and fire than rounds. Pinpoint, direct lighting works best. Grading a diamond for "fire" is not going to be a consistent thing unless the world adopts a standard environment always used at every grading lab.

DiamCalc and ImaGem can tell you a lot about sparkle, scintillation and to some extent, fire. Within these systems one has a fixed lighting model or fixed environment which makes consistent results. They are limited only by lack of universal standardization.

It is far easier to quantify "brilliance" because it involves all light returned, colored and colorless. One can fully know how much light is being applied to a diamond and the percentage or gray scale of the light being returned to the sensor.

 

[Paul-Antwerp]

Date: 7/23/2008 12:40:19 PM
Author:Sparkle_Girl
this is for a round brilliant i love sparkle and i really like the bright white of the brilliance.......what is the best way to get the best of both what is the combination..... please.

Hi Sparkle_girl,

You are asking a question that even many experts cannot answer correctly, since scintillation (which I think is what you call sparkle) has not been studied sufficiently by labs and other scientists. AGS has released parts of their ongoing scintillation-studies, but that is about it.

This still needs to be proven, but from experience, I would say that scintillation is maximized by optical symmetry. In rounds, this is often refered to as H&A, but it is not necessarily limited to this specific pattern.

The second part of the question basically is that you want that sparkle to be brilliant (white) and that you probably do not want to much coloured flashes (fire)? Well, that mainly depends upon the lighting environment, if you are going for one of the superior cuts. Another way of achieving this is going for a very symmetrical stone, which has little potential for fire. In general, you will also be giving up brilliance at the same time, but that is your choice.

Hope this helped,

 

[Sparkle_Girl]

hey Lorelei !

your always here for my yay! thank you! ok so the sparkle that i am looking for is a combo of both colored and white flashes but i think i am in love with the white flashes the most..... haha also i really would love for the diamond to have lots of brilliance at the same time and have good symmetry so that i doesnt get any darkness anywhere on the diamond like when i tilt it a certian degree oh and i do not like table reflection......does tis make sence even.....

haha

 

[John P]

...DiamCalc and ImaGem can tell you a lot about sparkle, scintillation and to some extent, fire. Within these systems one has a fixed lighting model or fixed environment which makes consistent results. They are limited only by lack of universal standardization.

It is far easier to quantify 'brilliance' because it involves all light returned, colored and colorless. One can fully know how much light is being applied to a diamond and the percentage or gray scale of the light being returned to the sensor.

Wow Dave. It's funny, I would probably have said the opposite. It seems like our devices are more designed to calculate overall brightness (light return). Ideal-Scope and ASET are such examples. Gemex, ISEE and Imagem are all counting pixels of light to reach their values. While some assessment of colored light is taking place in those machines human physiology and environment both strongly influence what the eye will see as dispersion - and since they have only one environment and no physiology it seems to me they're, in essence, figuring a brightness there as well. AGS Ray-Tracing and DiamCalc are able to calculate values with environmental changes considered... but no device we have yet gives a meaningful measure of scintillation in my opinion.

 

[oldminer]

John;

I agree that currently we don't have meaningful measures for scintillation although a static indicator based on several views of the diamond while it has been moved between images should be a good indicator of scintillation.

I also agree that using the human as the measuring tool makes us very dependent on what amounts to subjective results because of the reasons you stated. Ideal-Scope and ASET don't do much for fire or scintiallation quantification and that's why I left them out of the thread.

Gemex and ISEE2 are indeed other devices which use imaging and pixel assessment for light return and potentially for measurement of "fire" although I am not sure about the quality or consistency of their results.

 

[TopSecret]

Consider a Solasfera.

read this:

http://www.goodoldgold.com/ShapeTutorials/SolasferaTutorial/

 

[kcoursolle]

Date: 7/23/2008 2:20:28 PM
Author: kcoursolle
A well-cut TIC will give you the best balance of fire and white light, but if you want the bright white sparkle more, you might want to look for a TIC. Just plug stones into the HCA to find one.

I should clarify the highlighted part should say BIC.

 

[Sparkle_Girl]

than you K

.... is it usually hard to find one in BIC?

 

[kcoursolle]

Date: 7/23/2008 5:46:37 PM
Author: Sparkle_Girl
than you K

.... is it usually hard to find one in BIC?

They are fairly common, quite a bit easier to find than a FIC. If you post the carat size, color/clarity you are looking for we could search for you to try to find one.

 

[Sparkle_Girl]

i know i WISH that i could get it from the internet like good old gold or james allen or whiteflash but unfortunately i origionally got my diamond from a local vendor and i can only upgrade with them but friday if it is ok with you all i will post some stats of a few diamonds and if you would pleae help me pick the best best one PLEASE this is like sooooooo important to me....you all know how it feels tho right... haha thanks for the support

Aalways,
Sparkle

 

[Sparkle_Girl]

Date: 7/23/2008 6:14:32 PM
Author: Sparkle_Girl
i know i WISH that i could get it from the internet like good old gold or james allen or whiteflash but unfortunately i origionally got my diamond from a local vendor and i can only upgrade with them but friday if it is ok with you all i will post some stats of a few diamonds and if you would pleae help me pick the best best one PLEASE this is like sooooooo important to me....you all know how it feels tho right... haha thanks for the support

Aalways,
Sparkle

ooops wow i just learned how to do the "quote"

thingy lol

 

[kcoursolle]

Date: 7/23/2008 6:14:32 PM
Author: Sparkle_Girl
i know i WISH that i could get it from the internet like good old gold or james allen or whiteflash but unfortunately i origionally got my diamond from a local vendor and i can only upgrade with them but friday if it is ok with you all i will post some stats of a few diamonds and if you would pleae help me pick the best best one PLEASE this is like sooooooo important to me....you all know how it feels tho right... haha thanks for the support

Aalways,
Sparkle

In that case, I would just have them pull some diamonds for you and write down the stats and get your impressions of the stones. Then, post the stats here and we can give you a review of the stones.

 

[Sparkle_Girl]

Date: 7/23/2008 6:24:39 PM
Author: kcoursolle

Date: 7/23/2008 6:14:32 PM
Author: Sparkle_Girl
i know i WISH that i could get it from the internet like good old gold or james allen or whiteflash but unfortunately i origionally got my diamond from a local vendor and i can only upgrade with them but friday if it is ok with you all i will post some stats of a few diamonds and if you would pleae help me pick the best best one PLEASE this is like sooooooo important to me....you all know how it feels tho right... haha thanks for the support

Aalways,
Sparkle

In that case, I would just have them pull some diamonds for you and write down the stats and get your impressions of the stones. Then, post the stats here and we can give you a review of the stones.

ok!! THANK YOU!

get ready for fridayyyyy....... haha i will be a nervous wreck i will definately need your help thank you again!

 

[Sparkle_Girl]

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 7/24/2008 8:50:56 AM
Author: Sparkle_Girl

You are welcome SG, get the -

lab report type
colour and clarity
depth %
table %
crown angle or %
pavilion angle or %
girdle thickness
polish and symmetry grades
diameter measurement

Then we can go from there.

 

[Sparkle_Girl]

Date: 7/24/2008 8:57:46 AM
Author: Lorelei

Date: 7/24/2008 8:50:56 AM
Author: Sparkle_Girl

You are welcome SG, get the -

lab report type
colour and clarity
depth %
table %
crown angle or %
pavilion angle or %
girdle thickness
polish and symmetry grades
diameter measurement

Then we can go from there.

thank you !

i will probably post the diamond stats a little later in the day of friday, tomorrow!!! because i am going after work too look at the diamonds.....

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 7/24/2008 9:44:13 AM
Author: Sparkle_Girl

Date: 7/24/2008 8:57:46 AM
Author: Lorelei

Date: 7/24/2008 8:50:56 AM
Author: Sparkle_Girl

You are welcome SG, get the -

lab report type
colour and clarity
depth %
table %
crown angle or %
pavilion angle or %
girdle thickness
polish and symmetry grades
diameter measurement

Then we can go from there.

thank you !

i will probably post the diamond stats a little later in the day of friday, tomorrow!!! because i am going after work too look at the diamonds.....

You are welcome, get the above info, have a good look at the diamonds to see which you like best, then we can help you choose!

 

[Sparkle_Girl]

ok lorelei after taking a look at all of those diamonds i liked mine the best can you even believe that!!!!! it makes me happy tho and my husband is happy as well beacuse it is the one he origionally picked out!

now i can take the money we were going to use on the diamond upgrade and use it on something else!!! yay!!!!!

ok here is a picture of the finished product from my cell phone camera , for now, tomorrow or the next day i will post all of the shots with my good camera in show me the ring i pinky promise!!! : ) center diamond 2.02 carats E color ...setting lots of pritty micro pave 3 ring set ... total carat weight of the whole ring 4.02

 

[Lorelei]

That is great news and I am delighted for you!! Your diamond looks gorgeous and I would love some more pics of it when you are able please!!!

 

[Sparkle_Girl]

O MY GOSH! i love your cute little icon! she is so cute! thank you so much lorelei for everything and i will be sure to put up pictures as soon as i can within the next few days THANK YOU!!!

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 7/28/2008 8:24:56 AM
Author: Sparkle_Girl
O MY GOSH! i love your cute little icon! she is so cute! thank you so much lorelei for everything and i will be sure to put up pictures as soon as i can within the next few days THANK YOU!!!

Hehe! Delster made her for me a while ago, Penelope is actually holding a bottle of my favourite perfume, but I think she needs resizing a tad as she is a little distorted.

But you are most welcome, it was my pleasure!

 

[hearts-arrows_girl]

Date: 7/28/2008 8:18:57 AM
Author: Sparkle_Girl
ok lorelei after taking a look at all of those diamonds i liked mine the best can you even believe that!!!!! it makes me happy tho and my husband is happy as well beacuse it is the one he origionally picked out!

now i can take the money we were going to use on the diamond upgrade and use it on something else!!! yay!!!!!

ok here is a picture of the finished product from my cell phone camera , for now, tomorrow or the next day i will post all of the shots with my good camera in show me the ring i pinky promise!!! : ) center diamond 2.02 carats E color ...setting lots of pritty micro pave 3 ring set ... total carat weight of the whole ring 4.02

Wow! Your ring looks beautiful! Why were you thinking of changing it? I can''t wait to see more photos. Hopefully macro setting shots?