Understanding
Fancy Colors
Fancy Colors
What causes color in a Lab grown diamond?
Treatments!
Lab grown diamonds are being produced in a range of colors by several treatments that are as follows -
Irradiation is a process by which the color of diamonds are changed through high-energy electron saturation. Common colors for diamonds treated by irradiation include green and greenish blue.
This is a controlled heating and cooling process which is often used after irradiation to change a diamond’s color to brown, orange, or yellow.
HPHT is a process used to change the color of certain types of diamonds. Sometimes it is followed with annealing and irradiation which can yield pink-to-red to purple colors.
Now, have a look at what part of diamond is hue, saturation and tone.
What is Hue?
A diamond’s overall body color
Hue is the dominant color of the diamond. It can be affected by the presence of ‘modifiers’ or ‘tints’ , which are additional hues within a stone. A diamond can be a single color, such as pink, or it can have a secondary color, for example if a pink diamond had a purple tint, it would be described as a ‘purplish-pink diamond’.
Primary hues of a fancy color diamonds
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1. Red
2. Reddish Orange
3. Orange
4. Orangish Yellow
5. Yellow
6. Yellowish Green / Olive
7. Green
8. Bluish Green
9. Blue
10. Bluish Purple
11. Purple
12. Reddish Purple
Monochromatic Hues
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13. Grey
14. Black
Any of these hues can be mixed to create a new secondary color. For example - brown can be made by mixing treatment of red and yellow.
What is Saturation?
How pale or vivid the color appears in the stone
Saturation refers to the strength or intensity of the main color exhibited in the diamond.
This is typically determined by how color dominance of the hue.
What is Tone?
How pale or vivid the color appears in the stone
Tone refers to how light or dark the diamond appears.
This is typically determined by how much brown, black, grey or white is present in the stone.
What is Color Grading?
The tone, how much cool grey or warm brown is present, and the saturation, how pale or vivid the color appears in the stone, affect the diamond's color grade.
On GIA Colored Diamond Grading Reports, colored diamonds are graded in order of increasing color strength, from Faint, Very Light, Light, Fancy Light and Fancy to Fancy Intense, Fancy Vivid, Fancy Dark and Fancy Deep.
On GIA Colored Diamond Grading Reports, colored diamonds are graded in order of increasing color strength, from Faint, Very Light, Light, Fancy Light and Fancy to Fancy Intense, Fancy Vivid, Fancy Dark and Fancy Deep.
Colored diamonds with a ‘Light’ grade do not reach high levels of saturation, as demonstrated below.
Colored diamonds with a ‘Fancy Light’ grade will exhibit a slightly darker tone or stronger saturation than a 'Light' grade.
‘Fancy Intense’ grade colored diamonds have a lighter tone, with a significantly stronger color saturation.
A diamond with the darkest tone and with some color saturation is usually graded as ‘Fancy Deep’.