Part 11. TikTok & Facebook Live Actions – Watch for Enhanced Lighting

When buying opals online, especially on TikTok or Facebook Live Auctions, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement. The stone flashes colour, the seller hypes it up, and the price seems just right. But there’s a visual trick you need to watch for: the use of yellow lighting to artificially enhance opal colour.

TikTok & Facebook Live Auctions: Watch for Enhanced Yellow Lights

Some sellers use strong yellow lights during live streams to boost the brightness of reds, oranges, and greens. These lights make low quality opals look more valuable than they really are. Unfortunately, this is a trick that can cost you money and lead to disappointment when the stone arrives and looks nothing like what you saw online.

These lights are not how opals appear in real life. They don’t reflect the true look of a stone under daylight or normal indoor lighting conditions, such as in your home, on your skin, or in a jewellery case.

Image Comparison: Real Light vs Yellow Light

Here’s the exact same opal shown under two different lighting conditions:

Note how much more intense the yellow light makes the opal appear. The reds and oranges are boosted dramatically, while in normal light, they’re much more subtle.

Why This Matters

You wear opals under natural conditions like daylight, LED lighting, indoor settings. If the seller is using unnatural light to boost the colour, what you see is not what you’ll get. It’s like using a beauty filter on a gemstone. The opal may still be nice, but it won’t look like it did on screen.

Ask these questions before you buy:

• Can I see the opal under white or neutral light?
• Are you using filters, flash, or yellow light?
• Can you show a no light / no flash version?

If they say this is the light that they always use, that id not the answer and not good enough. They should be using white light, and that's what you should be asking them to use.

Final Thoughts

This isn’t about calling out sellers, it’s about protecting yourself as a buyer. Some Sellers use yellow lights because they want to sell fast and for over inflated values. Others might not realise how much it misleads the viewer. Either way, you deserve transparency as a buyer.

So next time you're watching a TikTok or Facebook Live watch the colour of the Sellers fingers and if the colours seem “too good to be true,” ask about the lighting. And if the seller avoids the question, you probably just saved yourself from a bad buy.

Please take care, and share this post with other buyers. I’m not here to take on any sellers. If the Sellers were doing the right thing, I wouldn’t need to write this post or the others I’ve got planned. I’m here to protect you, the buyer.