Crushed Ice Cushions...BAD???

[ChunkyCushionLover]

In that last pic of your srd, isn't the light hitting the pavillion? I don't think rounds are designed to benefit at all from pav light, are they? Other types of stones do benefit from that and the radiant looks like one. I have one of those. (not a radiant, just a "green" stone) and I think it's beautiful. At least when it can get light through the pavilion. I like the way it lights up in ways that well cut rounds don't, but it requires alternate light sources which is a negative for set jewelry but can be worked around.

All stones benefit from light hitting the girdle and pavilion, the ones that have less edge to edge brightness benefit more.

 

[ChunkyCushionLover]

All stones benefit from light hitting the girdle and pavilion, the ones that have less edge to edge brightness benefit more.[/quote]

With diamond light has to be below 24.5 degrees(the critical angle) to the normal of the pavilion to be completely transmitted through the pavilion. Side lighting is usually at a higher angle to the normal of even shallow pavilion angles and will only be weakly transmitted through to the viewer. Colored stones like sapphire and quartz benefit much more than diamond from pavilion lighting. (The diagram below was taken from Richard Hughes book on Ruby And Sapphire)

But really how often in normal wearing conditions does one flood the pavilion? How often is the ring turned upside down and the setting open enough to allow an exposed pavilion?

These situations are rare, this benefit is seen most often in photographs where the pavilion is flooded with light not in real life viewing conditions.

 

[ChunkyCushionLover]

 

[Doc_1]

i thought of putting those two pics together:

 

[Doc_1]

Now the light is not coming from the pavilion like previous photos rather it seems to my eyes hitting the crown from the side/top (agree still green zone).



I wish RD if you post a comparison where the light is hitting both at least in the red zone area....45-75 please!

 

[ChunkyCushionLover]

i thought of putting those two pics together:

You have pointed out that one diamond has more glare than the other.
The glare differences are from the position of the lamp and directional nature of the light not from a difference in pavilion angles.
The round is closer to the lamp and incident light hits it at a much steeper angle causing more glare.
Directional lamp light is poor for evaluating brightness and life in diamonds.

 

[ChunkyCushionLover]

Now the light is not coming from the pavilion like previous photos rather it seems to my eyes hitting the crown from the side/top (agree still green zone).

I wish RD if you post a comparison where the light is hitting both at least in the red zone area....45-75 please!

Three problems with the photograph you haven't pointed out:

1) The fingers are not flat the Radiant is raised higher than the round so it receives more light and blocks light from hitting the round.
2) The glare off the crown of the radiant is seen now as it is closer to the lamp and receives more higher angle light.
3) The camera is too close to both diamonds so contrast and dark areas are enhanced in both over normal viewing distance.

Once again terrible directional lighting to judge anything about cut from. Switch the diamond positions around and you would see more glare off the round instead.

At least he blocked the pavilion this time

 

[Doc_1]

Now the light is not coming from the pavilion like previous photos rather it seems to my eyes hitting the crown from the side/top (agree still green zone).

I wish RD if you post a comparison where the light is hitting both at least in the red zone area....45-75 please!

Three problems with the photograph you haven't pointed out:

1) The fingers are not flat the Radiant is raised higher than the round so it receives more light and blocks light from hitting the round.
2) The glare off the crown of the radiant is seen now as it is closer to the lamp and receives more higher angle light.
3) The camera is too close to both diamonds so contrast and dark areas are enhanced in both over normal viewing distance.

Once again terrible directional lighting to judge anything about cut from. Switch the diamond positions around and you would see more glare off the round instead.

At least he blocked the pavilion this time

As I pointed out many pages back the most accurate lighting for judging brightness I have ever seen by RD was for about 5 seconds at 1:41 in the video until he took both diamonds out of focus.

That goes in the favor of the radiant, it has less light going through since the light is hitting it at an angle more than the critical of 24.4. and the pavilion is blocked yet i pointed how it was lit like Christmas tree.
I agree it is not the best lighting but both are exposed to the same light. the round did not benefit much in the second pic.
I think it is important to have those two stones exposed to red zone light and see how they do.

 

[Rockdiamond]

Now the light is not coming from the pavilion like previous photos rather it seems to my eyes hitting the crown from the side/top (agree still green zone).



I wish RD if you post a comparison where the light is hitting both at least in the red zone area....45-75 please!

Doc, part of my considerations about the aset is that it standardizes the light.
This can be both a good thing, and a bad thing.
It's good as it acts as an equalizer.
It's bad because in real life there is no equalizer.
In other words, taking the photos as I do, I can't control exactly where the light is hitting the diamond. I will try to get a few more shots at different angles- In that particular shot I was limited as I wanted to show how the camera was not interfering with the light hitting the diamonds- so I made sure you could also see the edge of the lamp.
In the photo taken under the lamp- as in some of the other comparison shots- I have the diamonds as close to the light as possible.
The radiant is not blocking the round. I purposely put the diamonds as close as possible so they are both exposed to the same reflection of lens, and light.
The glare we see bouncing off the radiant is relevant to the aset- and how the diamond uses light.
But that whole subject is unnecessary for the purposes of comparing the cuts in the real world. To compare cuts in the real world, we look at diamonds.

Ccl is going to continue to attack whatever I say or do- that's obvious.
However for those who are interested in the open exchange of ideas- the photos I'm choosing bear a lot of resemblance to what I'm seeing in real life- of course magnified.
Although we can correlate the colors in some cases, aset photos bear little resemblance to real life diamonds. Which in my mind, is another weak point.
How the diamonds look in that photo are how they looked when I took it.

 

[Rockdiamond]

Now the light is not coming from the pavilion like previous photos rather it seems to my eyes hitting the crown from the side/top (agree still green zone).

I wish RD if you post a comparison where the light is hitting both at least in the red zone area....45-75 please!

Three problems with the photograph you haven't pointed out:

1) The fingers are not flat the Radiant is raised higher than the round so it receives more light and blocks light from hitting the round.
2) The glare off the crown of the radiant is seen now as it is closer to the lamp and receives more higher angle light.
3) The camera is too close to both diamonds so contrast and dark areas are enhanced in both over normal viewing distance.

Once again terrible directional lighting to judge anything about cut from. Switch the diamond positions around and you would see more glare off the round instead.

At least he blocked the pavilion this time

how about this ccl- post a photo that you feel is a good representation of a diamond- from anywhere you like- any photo.
Show us what you think is a representative photo.

 

[ChunkyCushionLover]

I agree it is not the best lighting but both are exposed to the same light.

No that grading lamp is not large enough to provide the same intensity light to both of diamonds its not even close. Look up a few posts at the shape of the lamp hood.

Try a little experiment, turn on a desk lamp, move your diamond close to it and get the angle so you see glare in the upper right hand corner of the diamond just like the radiant in RD's photograph. Now move the diamond about 6mm farther away(width of one diamond) from the lamp and observe the change.

What do you think you will see?

 

[Doc_1]

i thought of putting those two pics together:

You have pointed out that one diamond has more glare than the other.
The glare differences are from the position of the lamp and directional nature of the light not from a difference in pavilion angles.
The round is closer to the lamp and incident light hits it at a much steeper angle causing more glare.
Directional lamp light is poor for evaluating brightness and life in diamonds.

Am not sure if what you say is accurate about the light being closer to the round.
Look at the shadow and the possible direction of light. It could be the radiant is closer to the light source which i think is coming from the top right.

 

[ChunkyCushionLover]

i thought of putting those two pics together:

You have pointed out that one diamond has more glare than the other.
The glare differences are from the position of the lamp and directional nature of the light not from a difference in pavilion angles.
The round is closer to the lamp and incident light hits it at a much steeper angle causing more glare.
Directional lamp light is poor for evaluating brightness and life in diamonds.

Am not sure if what you say is accurate about the light being closer to the round.
Look at the shadow and the possible direction of light. It could be the radiant is closer to the light source which i think is coming from the top right.

Doc_1 I'm tired of playing the guessing game on poorly controlled photographs. RD has already admitted he doesn't know how to control the lighting in his photographs with his setup.

This isn't a simple task, some vendors have spent years studying lighting and controlling it. The DD is used by appraisors and GIA, Garry H and Octonus developed a lightbox for this purpose, AGS and various others tradesmembers calibrates their masters using the DD, and many vendors I know use diffused lighting lightboxes for presentation and comparisons. Even this http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html would be better than what he is using now.

If RD wants credibility on this forum and for people to accept his experiments he must pay significantly more attention to his methods of lighting and positioning the diamonds and fully disclose those methods. This applies equally to observing an Ideal Tolk Round, AVC or a crushed ice radiant.

It would be best he takes all of his videos, photographs, and commentary and writes a coherent, organized, and well supported article entitled "The beauty of Crushed Ice" to be published and recognized by this community. The luxury of an authored article is he can give his own unchallenged opinion which need only be educational, properly articulated, and supported by proof.

I wrote a recently published article about the naming conventions and pavilion plots of cushion cut diamonds found here something I was passionate about.

RD seems quite passionate about crushed ice cushions and radiants so he should write an article about it. Then the next time this issue comes up he can refer to the article in support of his arguments instead of rehashing the same thing over 19 pages.

 

[Rockdiamond]

yes ccl- you're a great person to be giving advice on how to behave on PS.

So, no answer to my questions?
How about a photo you feel IS representative?

I'm quite excited to get my hands on an Lbox- once they are available I will buy one.

But I'll still use my "uncontrolled" photos for the value they provide, which has been incalculable.

 

[Doc_1]

i thought of putting those two pics together:

You have pointed out that one diamond has more glare than the other.
The glare differences are from the position of the lamp and directional nature of the light not from a difference in pavilion angles.
The round is closer to the lamp and incident light hits it at a much steeper angle causing more glare.
Directional lamp light is poor for evaluating brightness and life in diamonds.

Am not sure if what you say is accurate about the light being closer to the round.
Look at the shadow and the possible direction of light. It could be the radiant is closer to the light source which i think is coming from the top right.

Doc_1 I'm tired of playing the guessing game on poorly controlled photographs. RD has already admitted he doesn't know how to control the lighting in his photographs with his setup.

This isn't a simple task, some vendors have spent years studying lighting and controlling it. The DD is used by appraisors and GIA, Garry H and Octonus developed a lightbox for this purpose, AGS and various others tradesmembers calibrates their masters using the DD, and many vendors I know use diffused lighting lightboxes for presentation and comparisons. Even this http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html would be better than what he is using now.

If RD wants credibility on this forum and for people to accept his experiments he must pay significantly more attention to his methods of lighting and positioning the diamonds and fully disclose those methods. This applies equally to observing an Ideal Tolk Round, AVC or a crushed ice radiant.

It would be best he takes all of his videos, photographs, and commentary and writes a coherent, organized, and well supported article entitled "The beauty of Crushed Ice" to be published and recognized by this community. The luxury of an authored article is he can give his own unchallenged opinion which need only be educational, properly articulated, and supported by proof.

I wrote a recently published article about the naming conventions and pavilion plots of cushion cut diamonds found here something I was passionate about.

RD seems quite passionate about crushed ice cushions and radiants so he should write an article about it. Then the next time this issue comes up he can refer to the article in support of his arguments instead of rehashing the same thing over 19 pages.

It is a simple observation i made, the shadow was indicating different lighting direction than what you suggested. simple physics of light hitting an object causing a shadow.

 

[ChunkyCushionLover]

yes ccl- you're a great person to be giving advice on how to behave on PS.

So, no answer to my questions?
How about a photo you feel IS representative?

I'm quite excited to get my hands on an Lbox- once they are available I will buy one.

But I'll still use my "uncontrolled" photos for the value they provide, which has been incalculable.

RD,

I won't answer bellicose questions.

You can choose to use your photographs to sell.
Trying to pass them off as educational is quite different.

This is obvious from so many voices who have trouble with you passing them off as educational to support your personal and business interests and opinions.

Garry H, StoneCold, Diagem, Rhino, ArjunaJane and KarlK, I'm sure I missed others, have been exceedingly patient in reminding you the problems in the representations you are making with your images.

Its too bad you don't want to listen or respond intelligently to what prominant members of this community are telling you.

 

[Rockdiamond]

I highly doubt a lot of the folks on your list would care to be associated with you- or your actions ccl.

The reason I have asked CCl to post a photo he feels is representative is that ANY photo can be picked apart and criticized.
There's no "perfect" diamond photo. Even the ones form Lbox.

 

[ChunkyCushionLover]

yes ccl- you're a great person to be giving advice on how to behave on PS.

So, no answer to my questions?
How about a photo you feel IS representative?

I'm quite excited to get my hands on an Lbox- once they are available I will buy one.

But I'll still use my "uncontrolled" photos for the value they provide, which has been incalculable.

David,

I've written an article and it was accepted, praised, and published in this community https://www.pricescope.com/communit...-conventions-for-cushion-cut-diamonds.147789/

That is much more than you have done. My postive suggestion that you write an article could only serve to help you.
You spent hours in this thread, why are you so resistant to writing an article?

The links in these forums are no follow from the search engines and web crawler perspective, so to get any real benefit you need to write an article.

 

[Rockdiamond]

It is a great idea CCL-
I will certainly consider it.

I will say that there's a lot of value in a "back and forth" discussion.
Statements are made- or evidence presented- and the challenge of that information provides a context

 

[Cehrabehra]

RD if I may... I get where you're coming from, at least in part, but this is the Internet and whether you like it or not people want to see consistent results so they can feel safe making such a large purchase online. Whether you agree 100% or not, this is the technology that has been embraced to produce consistent results. Everyone here knows the ultimate goal is to have something beautiful to the eye and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it is okay to like different things, even if they don't "perform" as well. But that's not the issue here. The issue here is creating a CONSISTANT environment to judge these stones in an online environment. Us consumers must wait to fall in love until after it's in our hands. Having a standard we can rely on gives us confidence and minimizes shipping back and forth. There are stones that will be not as good for selling online... A see it to believe it sort and that's okay. But I don't see how fighting the very idea of an online standard helps you in the ling run if you are going to pursue an online clientele.

Sorry for two finger typing errors!

 

[TakingthePlunge]

Boy I certainly missed a bunch in the laast couple days. Took me a good amount of time to read all the posts.

The ASET is not a magical this-stone-will-always-perform-better-than-the-next-stone tool. All it does is tell you the angle range that the light you see is being reflected from. I know this has been posted before but I cannot stress enough that everyone needs to read this page http://www.ideal-scope.com/1.using_reference_chart_ASET.asp. That pages explains exactly how the ASET works and what it does.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with green on an ASET. All green means is that the diamond is reflecting from lower angles. If you put a spot light at the diamonds horizon those green areas will light up just as bright as a red can.

The reason red is prefered to green is that more often than not your lighting source for the diamond will be somewhere up higher in the red angle zone. They also tend to be brighter sources. Theres no way to determine where a diamond will go in its lifetime so its best to pick the scenario that happens most often right? That being said as others have pointed out it is actually beneficial to have a mix of red and green so that when you do have situations where lighting exists mostly from the edges you still shine bright.

RD - congrats on the ASET purchase. I would love to have one with a large supply of diamonds at my disposal as you now have. My advice to you is to use on all your inventory. Take note of what you see. You will undoubtably start seeing trends in how good cuts look versus bad. It will be a great tool to tell you how those good stones tick and what to look for in the future.

I also think that you have stumbled on a great future topic for the forum. Find a stone with a lot of green, and another with a lot of red. Compare the two in different environments and give your findings. It very well might be that some users will benefit more by buying a primarily green stone given there daily conditions. Try to get stones in similar cuts and stats so its as close a comparison as possible.

 

[Rockdiamond]

RD if I may... I get where you're coming from, at least in part, but this is the Internet and whether you like it or not people want to see consistent results so they can feel safe making such a large purchase online. Whether you agree 100% or not, this is the technology that has been embraced to produce consistent results. Everyone here knows the ultimate goal is to have something beautiful to the eye and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it is okay to like different things, even if they don't "perform" as well. But that's not the issue here. The issue here is creating a CONSISTANT environment to judge these stones in an online environment. Us consumers must wait to fall in love until after it's in our hands. Having a standard we can rely on gives us confidence and minimizes shipping back and forth. There are stones that will be not as good for selling online... A see it to believe it sort and that's okay. But I don't see how fighting the very idea of an online standard helps you in the ling run if you are going to pursue an online clientele.

Sorry for two finger typing errors!

Part of the point of this whole exercise is that crushed ice- by it's very definition- many smaller virtual facets arranged, to an extent, haphazardly- is precisely the type of look that is never going to be as simple to quantify as a more patterned look.
Which may be a reason it's not "preferred" on PS- it's just harder to quantify.
No photo shown by any vendor actually looks like a diamond- they are all blown up.
But with crushed ice, to my eye, the photos that best resemble the effect are the photos that are slightly out of focus.


I have been using aset- and inserting photos. But my experience has not been ambiguous.
Many crushed ice stones that look very nice to my eye in real life have "mottled" aset images.

 

[CharmyPoo]

Many crushed ice stones that look very nice to my eye in real life have "mottled" aset images.

Were you able to examine any stones in real life with "excellent" aset images? I am interested in your opinion around how diamonds that have "excellent" aset images look to your eyes in real life.

 

[Rockdiamond]

Charmy- please post the type of aset you'd call excellent
Chances are I've seen and examined a stone like it
But I'd still like to see what you consider excellent in an aset
Even though I personally prefer non H&A rounds, I still see their beauty

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

This may be helpful. ETAS (effective total angular size) pictures for RD's crushed ice Radiant which at a glance give a good indication of where a diamond can gather light that creates brightness and sparkle. The image to the left is the ETAS, and to the right is ETAS looking from the diamonds perspective on the desk in my Canterbury store. You can see which lights have the potential to cause a bright sparkle in the stone.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Here is a round default stone ETAS

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Round brilliant ETAS in my shop lighting with observer obstructing lights

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

In that last image the observer is 60cm or 2 foot away. If the observer is at AGS's / US Military closest view distance of 8 inches (25cm) then the observer blocks a lot more light. This is what happens with a camera too.

(if anyone wants to you can import a photo of a camera into DC3.2 and see exactly what affect there will be from obstruction - I think)

 

[Doc_1]

not much for the round from your windows, the radiant still gets from as far as there.
a fancier way to express the red/green and blue zones.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

not much for the round from your windows, the radiant still gets from as far as there.

It is why a round suffers more from obstruction as per my post yesterday Doc