Have you really got an Alexandrite? Read this first!

[Nosean]

No - but this alex is glowing like a ruby or red spinel...very strong.

Burmese ruby and again the alexandrite.

The chelsea filter and UV ( LW and SW ) are additional tools. Never enough to separate a synthetic from the natural counterpart.

 

[Jimmy smith]

Hello again. Promised I'd return and give the report.
I asked for a full report and they only did the $350 one. I wanted to have clarity graded. I remember having an extremely hard time finding an inclusion with a microscope, I was twisting the ring at every angle, but finally did find one after about 15 minutes.
Glad they think its real, I had a strong feeling it was by looking at lots of alex from Brazil.
I wanted to thank everyone for helping me out, It is a beautiful stone and now my wife knows its real.

 

[LilAlex]

Not sure if this is the right venue, but here goes...

Can an alexandrite be too saturated? Bought this from a reputable vendor whose name pops up on this forum from time to time. One-carat-ish Hematita Brazilian with Gubelin certificate ("strong color change"), emerald cut. The incandescent (third photo -- with just a flashlight) is beautiful -- deep, vivid purplish-red with no brown or yellow at all. But the "daylight" is so-so to my amateur eye -- very dark and almost black, but with cool flashes of teal. In direct sun, it looks dark grey but in indirect sunlight it looks like the attached photos. In mixed light, it's a dark but very vivid purple. It was spendy per ct. I was hoping for a better daylight color since we don't do a lot of candlelight dining . There's not a lot of light return, in part because of the step cut, but it would be for a man's ring so this is the preferred shape, imo.

Any opinions/advice appreciated -- thanks!

 

[Nosean]

It is not the saturation - it is the tone.

faint - light - medium - deep - dark

Lovely stone but a bit too dark for many people I think - I
love it....

 

[kenny]

The white background should be the same (hue of) white in both pics.
If you can't trust the background color to be true, how can you trust the gem color?

The solution is to do a better job setting your camera so its white balance is matched to each of the the light sources used.
That means you have to do it two times.
Your camera's manual may have instructions.
Even better than preset settings is doing a manual white balance if your camera can do that.

If your camera can't do this you can correct each one after you take the pic.
You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on Photoshop.
I'm sure there must be cheap or free software for this where you just click on what's white and it makes it white.

Notice the left pic's white background is bluish compared to the white of the border around it.
That means that one wasn't balanced either.

A color stone forum is all about the gem color.
This matters.
Yet I'm the only one who talks about it ... over and over.

 

[LilAlex]

Thanks for the replies.

Thanks, Nosean -- I share your view!

kenny, it's really the daylight appearance that I'm questioning, and those two are accurate. (I shoot in RAW and only adjusted the exposure and bumped the saturation a hair to more closely mirror what the eye sees, since RAW is so low-contrast and undersaturated). These are just hand-helds to convey the impression. The incandescent appearance is way better than shown -- very intense and vibrant -- but my question was not about that. I hardly think these are stand-out bad photos on this forum

Not sure I follow on the white balance issue. I'm pretty savvy when it comes to PhotoShop, etc., and I have deliberately not adjusted white balance on these. I do all white-balance in post since I shoot in RAW (very easy); I can re-post photos if anyone cares. When the illumination wavelengths are intentionally different, it seems silly to adjust that difference away. Like white-balancing all my sunset pictures to look like mid-day. So then I'm creating a false reality of what this stone would look like when illuminated with a totally different spectrum -- even though that is not an illumination spectrum that would result in a red color-change. I totally agree if one were comparing two separate non-color-change stones -- the white balance needs to be identical. (Case in point: for one on-line vendor that comes to mind, all stones are shown in the same hand but if it's a ruby, the skin-tone is warm and if it's a sapphire, the skin tone is very cool!) Maybe all the white-balance recalibrating is why the online photos of alexandrites are so unrepresentative of what's seen visually...

Thanks for the insights!

 

[kenny]

Thanks for the replies.

Thanks, Nosean -- I share your view!

kenny, it's really the daylight appearance that I'm questioning, and those two are accurate. (I shoot in RAW and only adjusted the exposure and bumped the saturation a hair to more closely mirror what the eye sees, since RAW is so low-contrast and undersaturated). These are just hand-helds to convey the impression. The incandescent appearance is way better than shown -- very intense and vibrant -- but my question was not about that. I hardly think these are stand-out bad photos on this forum

Not sure I follow on the white balance issue. I'm pretty savvy when it comes to PhotoShop, etc., and I have deliberately not adjusted white balance on these. I do all white-balance in post since I shoot in RAW (very easy); I can re-post photos if anyone cares. When the illumination wavelengths are intentionally different, it seems silly to adjust that difference away. Like white-balancing all my sunset pictures to look like mid-day. So then I'm creating a false reality of what this stone would look like when illuminated with a totally different spectrum -- even though that is not an illumination spectrum that would result in a red color-change. I totally agree if one were comparing two separate non-color-change stones -- the white balance needs to be identical. (Case in point: for one on-line vendor that comes to mind, all stones are shown in the same hand but if it's a ruby, the skin-tone is warm and if it's a sapphire, the skin tone is very cool!) Maybe all the white-balance recalibrating is why the online photos of alexandrites are so unrepresentative of what's seen visually...

Thanks for the insights!

There is a misconception that photography tells the truth when straight out of the camera and any manipulation turns truth into a lie.
The truth is often the opposite.

White paper doesn't change color in real life and it should not change color in pics.

BTW your and my eye/brain systems compensates/adjusts automatically without our being conscious of it in real life.
Cameras can't.
It's our job to understand light and our equipment to make photography tell the truth ... especially on a forum for colored stones.

 

[kenny]

Not sure I follow on the white balance issue. I'm pretty savvy when it comes to PhotoShop, etc., and I have deliberately not adjusted white balance on these. I do all white-balance in post since I shoot in RAW (very easy); I can re-post photos if anyone cares. When the illumination wavelengths are intentionally different, it seems silly to adjust that difference away. Like white-balancing all my sunset pictures to look like mid-day. So then I'm creating a false reality of what this stone would look like when illuminated with a totally different spectrum -- even though that is not an illumination spectrum that would result in a red color-change. I totally agree if one were comparing two separate non-color-change stones -- the white balance needs to be identical. (Case in point: for one on-line vendor that comes to mind, all stones are shown in the same hand but if it's a ruby, the skin-tone is warm and if it's a sapphire, the skin tone is very cool!) Maybe all the white-balance recalibrating is why the online photos of alexandrites are so unrepresentative of what's seen visually...

Thanks for the insights!

Manual white balance is best :

Place a piece of white paper in front of the camera wherever the pic is being taken.
Move in close so the paper fills the frame.
Rack lens out of focus.
Press the manual white balance button on your camera.

There.
Now a pic taken of a gem on a white piece of paper will give a pic with the paper looking perfectly white ... and therefore the gem's hue will be true.

Repeat entire process every time you change the light source, even if both times it's the same such as the sun (at different times of the day).

Note: better cameras will have this manual WB feature.
Lesser cameras will only have a setting for, say, sun, shade, fluorescent, tungsten etc.
But the problem is ther eare many different colors of sunlight (mid day vs. sunset) and fluorescent comes in many "colors" of white such as cool and warm etc.

 

[LilAlex]

There is a misconception that photography tells the truth when straight out of the camera and any manipulation turns truth into a lie.
The truth is often the opposite.

White paper doesn't change color in real life and it should not change color in pics.

We'll just have to disagree -- not to get too far into the weeds here since this actually has nothing to do with my original post. I do not feel that photography tells the "truth" (nor do our eyes, of course) and I hope I did not imply that. Digital sensors are relatively insensitive to violet, for example, and behave much more linearly that vision does. That was not my point at all.

Yes, white paper does not change color, but the appearance of white paper changes in different illumination wavelengths. If a nightclub is illuminated in red light and I adjust my photos to pretend that it was shot with white light, is that a fair representation of what the nightclub looked like that night?

More importantly, with a color-change stone, we're not even looking at the intrinsic color of the stone (there is no such thing since it is largely light- and not pigment-based in this instance). You know this, I'm sure, but the color-change phenomenon is not just a consequence of the very different spectra falling on the stone -- everything in the world has that kind of color-change -- but rather it's the way this disproportionately influences color-change stones vis-a-vis the spectrum of light returning to the eye.

What do you think the manual white-balance is doing? It's not magic; it doesn't "fix" anything. It's just systematically changing the color spectrum of the image -- in effect, "pretending" that the illumination spectrum is a completely different one from what it really is. Very useful if you are image-adjusting something with an intrinsic color (pair of jeans, your white paper example, or the famous black-and-white vs blue-and-gold dress meme) until you say "there, that looks right!" As a photographer, I do this all the time.

I shoot a full-frame DSLR (maybe what you would call a "better camera") -- in-camera manual white balance is no better than what I can do in post. Plus, there are many algorithms that one can envision to perform white-balance. Is this red- or blue-shifting of the entire spectrum (i.e., "color-temperature" slider, which I prefer), or decreasing the saturation of a small slice of the spectrum (like for removing the color cast from an old Kodachrome)? They will produce very different results but both will make your paper nice and white!

To sum up: yes, I agree, it's very easy to make a white piece of paper look white in a photo. And it's very easy to white-balance for a non-color-change gem

 

[Nosean]

Kenny, I would love to see some pics from you of an alexandrite or other gem with a CC - a chameleon diamond would be o.k. too!!

 

[Jimmy smith]

Love the color of this ring. I snapped these when I got it back from jeweler. I plan on getting her a larger Alex stone within the next year or two. I got her a nice ruby for our 15th this year.

 

[kenny]

Kenny, I would love to see some pics from you of an alexandrite or other gem with a CC - a chameleon diamond would be o.k. too!!

I'd love to do that, but don't have any stones that change color.
I'm not in the industry.

If I did this the white backgrounds would look identical and pure white.
When white paper changes color in pics (because the light source has changed) the photographer is poorly informed or incompetent or has inferior equipment that is better reserved for taking simple unchallenging pics.

 

[kenny]

... To sum up: yes, I agree, it's very easy to make a white piece of paper look white in a photo. And it's very easy to white-balance for a non-color-change gem

Nonsense.
If the paper is white in both pics the hue of the gem is true in both pics, CC or not.

This is simple.

 

[kenny]

I suspect one reason people often have trouble wrapping their brains around all of this is the complex/sophisticated nature of the human eye/brain system.
Without our being conscious of it, it automatically compensates for changes in the color of light sources.

The camera can't.
It just documents what's there - and based on its settings, such as white balance.
The human eye/brain system's automatic-compensating nature means we don't see what's there; we see what we know should be there.

It's understandable this is all hard to comprehend.
It's like explaining water to a fish.

An example:
I used to visit a specialized photo lab that processed metal film off of alumina substrate material for electronics.
The light in the room was yellow.
When you walked in the white benches and walls looked yellow, of course.
After 20 minutes the yellow vanished and everything looked 'normal'.
When you left the room (returning to a room with usual light) everything looked purple for a while.

Were things really purple?
Of course not.
Were things really yellow?
Of course not.

But the point is the eye/brain system adjusts (or you could say is fooled) when the color of the light source changes.

There's a saying, "Seeing is believing."
Actually that's false.

Seeing seems simple, but it's actually complex.
I have a University textbook called, "Sensation & Perception", published by Sinauer Associates, inc. Sunderland MA., ISBN 0-87893-938-5
https://www.directtextbook.com/isbn/9780878939381
It presents the science behind each of the 5 senses.
It also explains how imperfect and easily fooled our senses are.

This being fooled results is a false confidence in what we see.
When we put a CC gem on white paper under daylight the paper will appear one way; when moving it indoors under tungsten light the paper will initially look more yellow - even though your brain knows the paper is really white under both lights.
The gem did change color but the paper didn't - even though the paper does initially look more yellow.

If you want to fairly and accurately document the color change of the gem itself under various light sources you must abandon our eye/brain system's light-hue-compensating and our stubborn psychology that results to us clinging to our fallible sense of sight.

The book explains that color is not actually "out there" in/on the object.
Color is literally manufactured in our brains.
What is out there is this:
Materials have properties that either absorb or reflect certain frequencies.
Human eyes/brains are tuned to a range of frequencies know as the visible spectrum.
There's nothing or more real about our range of what we call 'colors'; other animals' eyes/brains are tuned to other spectra.

The textbook is chock full of the imperfections of the other four senses too.
Fascinating reading.

 

[LilAlex]

Nonsense.
If the paper is white in both pics the hue of the gem is true in both pics, CC or not.

This is simple.

I can think of (now) three completely unrelated ways to make your white paper look white in any image irrespective of the illuminating light. They will all produce very different images: 1) I can change the color temperature, which shifts all wavelengths in the image (if you were looking at a blue -> red histogram, the entire histogram would shift); 2) I can desaturate a narrow band of wavelengths (say, yellow-orange in the example above) or subtract a color layer (in PhotoShop) that is the same color as the "white" paper; or 3) I can desaturate the entire image for all wavelengths. They will produce very different results, visually. They will all, however, pass the "kenny test" above. Cheers!

 

[kenny]

I can think of (now) three completely unrelated ways to make your white paper look white in any image irrespective of the illuminating light. They will all produce very different images: 1) I can change the color temperature, which shifts all wavelengths in the image (if you were looking at a blue -> red histogram, the entire histogram would shift); 2) I can desaturate a narrow band of wavelengths (say, yellow-orange in the example above) or subtract a color layer (in PhotoShop) that is the same color as the "white" paper; or 3) I can desaturate the entire image for all wavelengths. They will produce very different results, visually. They will all, however, pass the "kenny test" above. Cheers!

If there is only one light source (or all light sources are the same color temp) and the white paper looks true white in the pic then the hue of other stuff in the pic is also true.

If the white paper in one pic does not appear white, then other stuff in the pic are also false color.
Operator error.

 

[LilAlex]

If there is only one light source (or all light sources are the same color temp) and the white paper looks true white in the pic then the hue of other stuff in the pic is also true.

If the white paper in one pic does not appear white, then other stuff in the pic are also false color.
Operator error.

OK, my final post on this increasingly silly exchange. I literally just told you (for the second time) three separate ways to remove a color cast and produce three completely different color profiles in an image and still have your paper be nice and white. One light source or a thousand -- all the same color or all different -- doesn't matter.

I can tell you truly believe what you are saying above, but it is what we now refer to as a "false statement." Sign of the times, I guess! By the way, "color temperature" is something that can be adjusted in post and need not apply to the illuminating light.
Over and out!

 

[LD]

Kenny - I am in the US in May/June (California and Las Vegas) and will happily meet you with some of my Alex for you to photograph if you'd like the challenge! These stones do NOT react the way normal stones do and white balance etc., doesn't work as you think it might. For example, if I have an Alex in front of me I see green, I then look through the lens of the camera (without taking a photo) and the colour is not green! That's before I've even attempted to take a photo!!!! I understand why you have advised as you have but if you haven't photographed one then I can see how you would think we are all stupid not to be able to do it. In actual fact, as an avid collector of Alex, the photos posted above by the lady with the different colour backgrounds actually tells me far more about the gemstone and whether it's an Alex or not rather than a highly manipulated photo! Even Vendors with great reputations have to resort to photoshop to get an accurate colour of what they see by eye. I would love to learn from you if there is a way to do it accurately but I do feel you'd need to have a real Alex to practice on (and I mean that respectfully).

For anybody questionning the lab reports and the photos on them please don't question them. I don't know how they do it (perhaps photoshop) but I do know that on some of my lab reports, the photos of my Alex are not an accurate representation although I'm not doubting the report of course.

 

[DanJ]

LD what is the best way to value a stone?
I had a shop that specializes in Alex in Chicago tell me my ring is definitely Russian and offered me $50k for it and am considering selling it. Would just like to be sure I am getting a fair price for it.

 

[DanJ]

Forgot to mention the Alexandrite is approximately 2.5 Caret

 

[kenny]

Kenny - I am in the US in May/June (California and Las Vegas) and will happily meet you with some of my Alex for you to photograph if you'd like the challenge! ...

Thanks.
Nothing personal, but I no longer meet PS folks ... security issues.

I stand by what I've posted regarding white balance.
If you can't believe the hue of the background to not change, then you can't believe the gems' hue ... Photography 101.

 

[Summer_breeze]

LD what is the best way to value a stone?
I had a shop that specializes in Alex in Chicago tell me my ring is definitely Russian and offered me $50k for it and am considering selling it. Would just like to be sure I am getting a fair price for it.

 

[Summer_breeze]

Can you share the name of the shop in Chicago? Thanks.

 

[ShinyPink]

Kenny - I am in the US in May/June (California and Las Vegas) and will happily meet you with some of my Alex for you to photograph if you'd like the challenge!

Shoot, I'll meet with you just to hold your Alex!

 

[Barrett]

I was at first inclined to agree with Kenny on the matter of alex photography and the difference in background color.....however........I must agree with LD on this one.
CC stones, such as alexandrite, will always show a different background color when shooting under it's two respective light sources. Kenny is correct with regards to almost all gemstones and their photographing. CC stones are the exception to the rule though.
Most folks use photoshop to alter the different background color temperatures seen in alex pics. The only way I saw to minimize it, but not get rid of it completely, is from the process Allan Aoyama uses.

"To avoid the background changing colour with the different lights, you need to be able to set the camera's colour balance. It depends on what type of camera you have but all DLSRs should be able to do this.
Set up an 18% grey card under the light source before you shoot your stone. Set the white balance and exposure with the grey card, then substitute your stone in with desired background and shoot the pic with the prior settings.
Swap out your light and repeat. This should result in the backgrounds staying more or less the same colour regardless of the light source, and show the true colour change of the stone."
and
" I shoot with a Nikon D7000, Aperture mode F10 ISO200 on a tripod with a light tent. On the camera I used the Exposure Lock function with the 18% grey card in the tent to ensure consistent exposures between light sources. Actually now that I think about it, I may have shot the LED photo with -1/3 f-stop and the CFL with no exposure adjustment."

 

[metall]

I was at first inclined to agree with Kenny on the matter of alex photography and the difference in background color.....however........I must agree with LD on this one.
CC stones, such as alexandrite, will always show a different background color when shooting under it's two respective light sources. Kenny is correct with regards to almost all gemstones and their photographing. CC stones are the exception to the rule though.
Most folks use photoshop to alter the different background color temperatures seen in alex pics. The only way I saw to minimize it, but not get rid of it completely, is from the process Allan Aoyama uses.

"To avoid the background changing colour with the different lights, you need to be able to set the camera's colour balance. It depends on what type of camera you have but all DLSRs should be able to do this.
Set up an 18% grey card under the light source before you shoot your stone. Set the white balance and exposure with the grey card, then substitute your stone in with desired background and shoot the pic with the prior settings.
Swap out your light and repeat. This should result in the backgrounds staying more or less the same colour regardless of the light source, and show the true colour change of the stone."
and
" I shoot with a Nikon D7000, Aperture mode F10 ISO200 on a tripod with a light tent. On the camera I used the Exposure Lock function with the 18% grey card in the tent to ensure consistent exposures between light sources. Actually now that I think about it, I may have shot the LED photo with -1/3 f-stop and the CFL with no exposure adjustment."

Not the best photographer in the room but...isn't Mr Aoyama's advice the same as kenny's but using a different color and ina different landscape? I think that the general gist I'm getting is that wherever you are taking the picture/under whatever lighting conditions ....the camera needs to be calibrated/adjusted to that environment/light sources version of white, or in Aoyama's case 18% grey...since that is what he finds helps show color best. Either with white balancing or color balancing....Both aoyama and kenny are saying you need to adjust before every new setting (living room versus under tree) or light source so that your camera is calibrated to the environment/light you are taking the picture in.

 

[Bron357]

Be kind to me, I just use my iPhone for all my glorious photos and have enough trouble getting it to focus! And I am quite proud that I learnt how to turn the image and even crop it. Woo hoo.
For the totally technically inept these are true milestones.

 

[suzanne2]

Be kind to me, I just use my iPhone for all my glorious photos and have enough trouble getting it to focus! And I am quite proud that I learnt how to turn the image and even crop it. Woo hoo.
For the totally technically inept these are true milestones.

I read all of it, I barely understand half of it, and I leave with my eyes crossed.

 

[DanJ]

Can you share the name of the shop in Chicago? Thanks.

I was at PIA Gems and a Lithuanian with a shop upstairs in the same building was there. His name is Valdas

 

[lunamoth11]

I know this is an older post and while I did read through the whole thing and understand that my Great-grandmother's ring is likely synthetic, I was curious what you all thought. The colors to me don't scream synthetic. I've been meaning to have it sent to a lab for an official report. I love the ring as it reminds me of my Grandma who wore it often. Any thoughts?