Confused about cut? You’re not alone. The selection of diamond rings that are available in today’s jewelry market is endless, and a great deal of that variety comes from differences in the manufacturer’s finishing, or cutting process of stones. The science of stone cutting has advanced dramatically during the last hundred years alone, and as technique improved, demand for diamond rings has soared.

There are many ways to assess the value of a diamond rings and the stones they contain. Consideration of the four C’s (carat, color, clarity, and cut) is probably the most popular and simplest method, although it is important to understand what each distinction means. Of the four C’s, cut is perhaps the most widely misunderstood. Contrary to popular belief, a diamond’s cut is much more complicated than the shape of your stone. An expertly cut diamond’s appearance, when seen with the naked and inexperienced eye, will automatically seem to be nearly flawless, and even the highest quality stone will lose brilliance and sparkle if it is cut poorly.

Uncut diamonds in their natural state usually take shapes that ultimately suggest each piece’s particular final cut. A rough oblong stone, for example, is likely to become an oval, pear or marquise shape after the cutting process, whereas fuller uncut stones appearing in natural crystal shapes are often destined to be finished with princess or square cuts, which are particularly stunning as solitaire diamond rings.

Diamond cutting was invented the mid fourteenth century. The first cut was a simple, four-sided point cut, which was joined as time passed by a number of other cuts as time passed, including the table cut, the single cut, the old mine cut, the old European cut, and, eventually, the contemporary brilliant cut that most owners of diamond rings are so familiar with today.

Cutting is a long, complicated, exhaustive process that relies heavily on scientific and mathematic principles and must be done by a skilled and experienced technician. There is no room for error in diamond cutting, so the following four stages of the cutting process must be executed perfectly in order to avoid diminishing or losing the value of a stone which will directly affect the value of any diamond rings or other jewelry they are used to create.

Step 1 – Planning: Considered by some to be the most important part of the manufacturing process. An expert called a planner carefully marks a diamond in its natural form. Planners consider a rough stone’s clarity, dimensions, and structural makeup in order to create a cutting blueprint.

Step 2 – Cleaving/sawing: The rough diamond is cut with exacting attention to detail. Cutting is done manually, by cleaving, or with a laser or diamond blade rotary saw.

Step 3 – Bruting: During bruting, the diamond’s top face profile is rounded out of its first cut through friction, rotating against a diamond tipped tool to shape its outline.

Step 4 – Polishing: It is during this final stage that a stone is blocked for symmetry with a single cut, determining the finished diamond’s brilliance and sparkle. After blocking, larger stones undergo further polishing by a specialist brillianteer to balance and correct inconsistencies on a miniscule scale.

After these four steps, diamonds are ready to be placed in a setting and then sold as diamond dings are varying value and price ranges, depending on the factors discussed above.