Choose a tab, then move the slider or pick an option. The picture and the description change with each grade.
Interactive tool
Diamond 4 Cs explorer
Move through the diamond grades and see what changes: colour from D to Z, clarity from flawless to included, how cut proportions steer light, how big each carat weight looks, and the names of a diamond’s parts.
Explore the 4 Cs
Colour: from D to Z
- D–F Colourless
- G–J Near colourless
- K–M Faint
- N–R Very light
- S–Z Light
Clarity: from flawless to included
- FL Flawless
- IF Internally flawless
- VVS1 Very, very slightly included
- VVS2 Very, very slightly included
- VS1 Very slightly included
- VS2 Very slightly included
- SI1 Slightly included
- SI2 Slightly included
- I1 Included
- I2 Included
- I3 Included
Cut: what proportions do to light
Cut grades for round brilliants run: Excellent, Very good, Good, Fair, Poor.
Carat: weight and size
The parts of a diamond
- Table
- The large flat facet on top. Most light enters the stone here.
- Crown
- The upper part, between the table and the girdle. Its angled facets help split light into flashes of colour (fire).
- Girdle
- The thin outer edge at the widest point. The setting usually grips the stone here.
- Pavilion
- The lower part, below the girdle. Its angle decides how much light reflects back up through the top.
- Culet
- The point, or tiny facet, at the very bottom of the pavilion.
- Total depth
- The height from the table to the culet, compared with the diameter. It is one of the measurements behind the cut grade.
Pictures: one AI-generated illustration of a diamond, adjusted for each grade. They show how the grades differ; they are not a grading of any stone.
How the tool works
Methodology
The pictures come from two AI-generated studio illustrations of one round brilliant diamond, each checked for gemmological accuracy before use. Colour grades are shown by tinting that stone, clarity grades by drawing typical inclusions over it, carat weights by scaling it to the typical diameter of a well-cut round brilliant, and cut by drawing simplified light paths. Because the stone itself never changes, only the quality being shown does.
Grade names and their descriptions follow the internationally used D-to-Z colour and FL-to-I3 clarity scales. The pictures show how the grades differ from one another; they are not a grading of any stone, and real diamonds of the same grade vary.