Which tartan is it and where should I buy my kilt?

[figheadair]

Gauging colors from mill to mill on a computer monitor is a tricky business - there are many factors that can affect how a tartan looks in a photograph (photo exposure, white balance, digital manipulation of contrast/levels/color balance, monitor calibration, etc.) - it's definitely worth narrowing your choices down to a handful of candidates based on web images, and then ordering swatches so you can see exactly what they look like in real life.

Absolutely right. But if I may, a point of correction on terminology. People often confuse colour and shade and use them interchangeably, especially colour when they mean shade and this often leads those with less knowledge to refer to clan x as having two tartans; a dark one and a bright one for instance. The two examples shown by Paul are the same colour but they are woven in different shades. Red is red etc but qualified as light, dark and so on. Where it gets interesting is when one strays into the realm of Reproduction and Weathered tartans where the colours have actually been changed. Technically one could argue that they are different tartans, especially the Weathered range – I’ve never seen an example of an old piece actually fading like either an don’t see how the traditional dyes would fade/stain un-uniformly like the two ranges suggest.

[Kilted Cole]

First off. WELCOME TO THE GREAT XMARKS RABBLE! And yes it looks darker but that may be because of the time of day the pictures are being taken by the mob.

[OC Richard]

Absolutely right. But if I may, a point of correction on terminology. People often confuse colour and shade

Not to be too persnicketty, but "colour" isn't used by artists etc. "Colour" is a vague generic term.

The term is "hue" which refers to a colour's place on the colour wheel.

"Tint" is the amount of white, "Shade" is the amount of black.

Another term is "saturation".

Here's one of many sites which discuss these terms. Artists need such terminology in order to discuss colours in a technical and specific manner

http://www.colorsontheweb.com/colorterms.asp

[Dirk81]

Thank you very much to everybody! That's a great help here!
Now... where to order? What is a good choice for a first kilt? Scotweb? MacGregor & MacDuff? Other suggestions??