Understanding GIA Diamond Color Part 2: What Diamond Color Is

greetings and welcome to a video program on the subject of understanding diamond color this is the second in our consumers guide series to understanding diamond color and in this program we're going to be focusing on the subject of what diamond color is in our first program we covered what diamond color isn't and we looked at a number of features that consumers and gemologists and a lot of laymen often mistake for at being diamond color so that's an important video to watch if you haven't seen it in the second video we're just gonna cover what color is and put very simply when we refer to diamond color in in in gemology we're referring to the actual body color of the gem material itself this body color is best examined critically when the diamond is taken and turned upside down against a flat white background and we're gonna be examining in this video colors D all the way down to o in a critical fashion upside down against a flat white background the same exact way that they do it in laboratories like G ia and a GS before we go into the lab setting though I just want to make you familiar diamonds do actually come in an array of colors that cover the spectrum there are diamonds that a violet there are diamonds that are red diamonds that are blue diamonds that are green pink all of these body colors represent real real rarities in the world of diamond color and these fancy colored diamonds can really get expensive when they're natural and origin they come out of the earth that way there are colored diamonds on the market that are treated or irradiated to have fancy colors and but those diamonds would be very inexpensive because they weren't come out of the earth that way so in any case we're gonna take it in the lab setting now and familiarize you with color and how these diamonds look critically upside down against a flat white background stay tuned because this is gonna be a fun video all righty and here we are in our diamond laboratory we are under GI a approved lighting that the temperature is perfect for diamond color grading the this is a flat white background and here we are looking at what is called colorless okay this is a D color this is a diamond that happens to be here at this moment it's a 120 DBS - and colorless diamond by definition is diamond that when examined in a critical backdrop which is flat face down against a flat white background will be colorless okay this next time in coming on the screen here is a D alongside of an e okay now we've color corrected the the white balance on the camera so I tell you if this thing is picking it up like I think it's picking it up you'll see the ever so faint nuan's from a d2 and E all righty now as with going along in the video on the show some interesting facts and tidbits on on color as we're examining but the reason that color is examined upside down against a flat white background is because when you turn the diamond upside down you're not distracted by any you know by any brilliance or bright flashes or contrast in the diamond and put against a flat white because flat white will expose any color within the diamond at all even the faintest nuances so right now on the screen we have D E and F all righty now just to let you know less than 1% of diamonds that come out of the world odd D or E but all three of these let F you can see against flat white background an ever so faint hint of color barely notable to the eye but against the flat white background is where this distinction can really generally only be seen because if you put a D next to an F face up in a ring you're really not going to see this kind of a distinction in the color okay and often in the industry will use the expression white diamond to express the color of diamond but really the most rare that or the rarest color and diamond is no color at all okay and other examples of things in life that we see that are colorless would be water or glass things of that nature so diamond colorless diamond we use the letters on the scale to represent in a critical fashion the actual body color of the gem material okay you wouldn't believe the price difference that can exist sometimes just going from a D color to an e color especially if we're looking at flawless or internally flawless grades the difference in value can be so many thousands and thousands of dollars just from a d2 and eight but both of these constitutes extremely rare color range um we maybe we're probably going to as we compare the other colors we'll probably be using the D as a point of reference so that you can see what the most colorless looks like next to any other given color but D through F will face up I see white and a ring and face down against the flat white background colorless okay we're gonna move these guys on the side for a second and we're gonna pull out the next lineup of diamonds which will be the near colorless range the near colorless diamonds here is a G here is an H here is an i and then pull the J right right alongside of it isn't all of these diamonds are GI a graded on the color scale and our old conservatively graded diamonds with regards to their color we've visually inspected them here in our laboratory as well and have ran them on our color imager which is another form of grading the color another method to grade diamond color we use both methods here in our in our personal laboratory so ugiy through j colors G H I and J will be face-up will be white diamond face down against the flat white background you can see this ever so slight tint of color the most popular colors of diamond decreases to is yellow you can see that EV is so faint hint of yellowish coming especially to get to the eyes of the jays a little bit more easier to see but these are diamonds that are often sold into engagement rings we will purchase G through J colors regularly for inventory because when olia the factors on the diamond are nice especially it's cut quality these diamonds will be beautiful one thing I just want to point that to as we're putting this video together for you on color color does not equal beauty okay color equals rarity the only time color can really affect beauty is if the color I mean is just so off that you know get in this high contrast between a really tinted stone I'm gonna get to those in just a second and you put it in a platinum setting or a white gold setting and you could just notably see the color difference you know and like an M or an N color or something like that unless you like the warmer colors but any case G through J you don't have you don't have to worry much about warmer colors that's just for fun yeah we're gonna I'm gonna get take the D and just show you as a point of contrast is the D along side of the G okay so there's your color difference from a D to G is your color difference from a D to an H okay and yeah as you observe in color and diamond you could see it you'll take note you can see it more easily in the tips okay where the diamond comes to points like right here on the side right here and also at the point you can see a more a better concentration of the color in the gem material as we're examining it here in our laboratory okay so that's G next to an H here is AG Nick I'm sorry daddy if I said G next H I made a mistake that's a that was a D next to an H here is a D next to an eye okay and then here is a D next to a J okay people who are really color sensitive to diamonds there were some people that have more color sensitive than others people who are very color sensitive can begin to see it more so in the i2j color range so if I'm helping a guy and he's like this girl she can detect color differences from you know from a g2j then we recommend stick each color and higher but there's your is your D next to you J another interesting here just as was since we're talking about near colorless diamonds here is the G next to the J so there's that is the best of near colorless which is G next to J which is the lowest of the near colorless range sometimes we get people who ask what does a G look like next to a J since they're both considered near colorless there's that comparison right there okay now we're going to look at the next range of color so we fellow we covered D through F which is colorless diamond recovered G through J which is considered near colorless as ug through J right there again and in next the next range is the range that's considered faint tint okay and color covers two letters K L and M and I'm gonna bring K L and M on the screen for you now here is a K here is an L and here is an M okay and you can see that the color in this color range now becomes a little bit easy to see particularly against the flat white background there's something else you got a bear in mind too as you as I'm teaching you and showing you these colors here is when we look at diamonds upside down against a flat white background we are looking at it in a critical setting here that you will most likely never ever see it in when you're when you're wearing your diamonds unless your skin happens to be albino white you will probably never see it in this setting when it comes to practical observation okay but here's your KLM and just just for fun here is we're gonna flip these guys face up to LNM and hey you can see a specular Li from these tilt angles a little bit of the wool in the color all these diamonds happen to be exceptionally cut diamonds so they're they're bright reflections are exceptional but here at the tilt angles this way you can see the color more easily and I would also point out that when you're looking at diamond color in a ring the easiest way for you to observe that is to take the diamond and look at it on its profile look at it from the side that's when it would be possible to see the color now you know just all I have those face up we're going to compare these again to the D okay that here is the color difference from a D and then that's a K L and an M and you can see the icy whiteness of the D not just for fun ham is going to take this d out again and we're gonna put I'm gonna put the H alongside of the K L and M and see you can see the absence of lump in the h and the presence of that warmth and when I say once I'm eating that episode faint yellow tint in the que eles & m's especially against the flat light background for those of you who were looking at the near colorless and saying whoo that's too yellow that can be a colorless is and we wouldn't consider to be yellow and either with a lot of other people to bring the D back into the picture again so that we have a point of reference and is the D next to the K ok here is the D next to the L ok the difference becomes pretty easy to see and then here is the D next to the M very interesting comparison but this this will be the easiest way to see it alright so now we look at KL and M the next letters we're going to look at or what I have what I have the lowest that I particularly happen to have here we do purchase diamonds in our inventory that we buy through estates and through auctions and stuff like that and when the time when we buy diamonds like that they generally cut pretty bad but we'll take them and get them recut into beautiful beautiful stones but sometimes they consist of little colors like this and these two diamonds we're bringing on the screen here is an N it's a 159 n that we happen to have here and a 174 Oh color okay and then just to show you what a marked contrast there is from D from an end to and o is that difference which is pretty radical and these colors here would be considered very light yellows not not yellow enough to be considered a fancy color these stones here their value is decreased tremendously because of the tint that's in these diamonds they're more they're more common rather than more rare and then we'll flip these face up look at that look at the difference you could just see it's like night and day at least against this flat white background of course so if a person is purposely looking for this kind of warmth in a stone and let me tell you this this does not color does not like I said earlier color does not equate to beauty you can have a diamond that does have a warmth to it that's absolutely beautiful and has a great brightness and fire and scintillation but in the next video that we're going to publish on the subject of diamond color our first video was what diamond color isn't second video which is this one is what diamond color is and the last video we're going to shoot in this series on diamond color is what factors can alter our perception of color making a diamond appear whiter than what it actually is okay we're going to wrap this clip up with a view to all of the colors side by side here on the screen at once where we have d e f g h i j k l m n and o alright so there they are face down all nice conservatively graded colors showing on the whole spectrum going down the scale to from D through O so I'm just going to take you a little bit closer on these okay d e f g h i j k l m and and oh okay is that last wrap up close up I'm going to turn them face up now to before we close out okay and here is again D through o as we look at them all face up against the flat white backgrounds remember this is a flat white background only if her skin is that snow white these color differences be apparent d e f g h i j k l m n and o and lastly we take you on a close-up here face up I've let his d e f g as h on the fall right i j k l m n and then last but not least oh alright and there's the warmth that that we can see in the most critical way upside down against the flat wave thank you for watching our program on a consumers guide to diamond color what diamond color is and now you've seen this video if if you haven't seen our last one on what diamond color isn't you'll definitely want to see that one so that you don't make the common mistakes that most people do when they're looking at diamond color and we're gonna be coming out with another video to be sure to look out for it you could do so by subscribing on our channel here within the next video is going to be covering subject of what can make a diamonds color appear better than what it really is alright so stay tuned and once again thank you for watching

Channel: Good Old Gold

Views: 282,072

Rating: 4.8480816 out of 5

Keywords: diamond color, gia diamond color, diamond color grading system

Id: vcmSj8dOLRI

Length: 20min 44sec (1244 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 19 2011