How magnified are James Allen's photos?

HarmanRabbJr · Feb 24, 2013

When I compare photos on their website, I can see a huge difference in color between a J and and H. Similiarly, every Sl1 looks like its got tons of crap in it. However, as hard as I try in the stores, I couldn't tell the diference between a D IF and a K Sl2. Should I be concerned about my observations in the JA photos, or am I overthinking it?

I've found a nice J stone, but it looks awfully yellow in the photo. Of course, the photo is the size of my head. Thanks in advance.

denverappraiser · Feb 24, 2013

It's a tricky question because it includes the size of your monitor as part of the forumla. It's easy enough to work out. It'll say on the lab report what size the stone is and you can measure the image on your screen. A bit of math will lead to your answer. A 6mm stone that shows as 6 inches on your screen is 25x for example. Resolution and depth of field are important issues with photographs as well by the way. JA does pretty well but not all photographs are taken the same way and they don't all show off the inclusions the same.

kenny · Feb 24, 2013

In addition to the monitor size, on my iMac I will routinely enlarge a window to make reading easier.

Below is a capture of what I see on my monitor.
There are two windows up at the same time for demo purposes.

On my 27 inch monitor the upper left diamond in the left window measures 85mm on my screen, but is 6.6 mm in person.
85 / 6.6 = 13
So it is magnified 13 times.

The right window on my monitor didn't get blown up as much.
The same diamond measures only 42mm on my screen.
42 / 6.6 = 6.4
So in the right window the diamond is magnified 6.4 times.

Of course now that I uploaded the pic to Pricescope their software shrinks the pic from 15 inches wide down to 6 inches, so those 13 and 6.4 times magnification do not apply to what I see now in this thread.

I find it very annoying when vendors or posters here state the magnification of a pic.
It's is meaningless since it depends on their viewer's monitor and settings.
YOu can only state the absolute magnification if you show someone a pic on paper.