Newbie can't tell between Pastel and a pretty Normal... help?

My boyfriend and I are new to pythons, but we adore them so far. We have three between us- he has two (one male, one unsexed), and I have one female. The male and female are siblings and are normal. His unsexed was from a pet store and has beautiful coloring, but of course we do not know it's lineage.
I am convinced it is a pastel from the reading I've been doing, but he is convinced it is just a pretty normal. However, the snake is so bright in comparison to our two normals that I have trouble believing it is not a pastel (and my girl is even bright compared to the normals at my work!)l. It's eyes are not bright green, but are not black, if that helps. I'll post some photos of the snake in question and my normal girl. Any help would be appreciated! Going to post photos both with and without flash from the same camera, as I know how it can distort the coloring. Apologies for my boy's cute face being in the pics. :) It's the best photo I have of his BP.


Unsexed BP in question with flash on:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7323/9...36a6e749_z.jpg

BP in question with flash off:
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2823/9...a57d9570_z.jpg

My little girl "Monster" with flash on:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7458/9...46b98799_z.jpg

Monster with flash off:
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3759/9...61e7e9d9_z.jpg

Normal

Looks like a pretty normal to me.

looks like a normal can we get a pic of the eyes? I am going to go a head and say normal regardless but it will help.

Normal. Here's my pastel girl for comparison when she was younger:

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ril2120126.jpg

Awww, darn, I was rooting for pastel! Thank you so much for the quick and definite responses! And the comparison pic definitely does help. Googling "pastel ball python" sends up a lot of results that just ended up confusing me. Thanks!!

pastels can also look very crappy though. this is a very poor quality pastel.

http://ball-pythons.net/gallery/file...bad_pastel.jpg

Wait... so if that is a pastel... how can you definitely tell the difference between the blurred area of pastel & normal in other cases? Do pastels have some sort of distinction to their markings that I am missing, other than color? Is it purely genetics in cases like the above?

here's a picture of her when she was younger - pastels have green eyes, and the pattern is usually bussier.
http://ball-pythons.net/gallery/file...1/9/8/june.jpg

these are her babies, an animal your size would be a lighter yellow. the bad quality ones don't get as dark as this girl until they are 4 or 5 years old
this clutch had 2 pastels and 2 normals, one of the normals didn't make it through the month.
http://ball-pythons.net/gallery/file..._hatchling.jpg

Here's a good guide to the pastel morph and characteristics: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...?144651-Pastel

The key for me is the "brown line" on pastels: where the topline is usually a darker shade of brown/yellow/orange than the bottom belly yellowing. Pastels have green eyes too, though some normals can have green eyes as well. I believe pastel is a morph where in time you get "trained" to see it and it gets easier to pick them out from high gold/yellow normals.

Ok! I think I understand much better now. You all are an incredibly helpful bunch, thanks!

It looks a lot like Tali, who is definitely 'just' a pretty normal :) Tali was also a petstore purchase, so who knows what the heck is going on genetically. She's pretty though.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/206d5b1a9...8o4_r1_500.jpg
http://24.media.tumblr.com/a679f72f1...8o3_r1_500.jpg
http://25.media.tumblr.com/19a29cd4a...8o5_r1_500.jpg
http://31.media.tumblr.com/a3beba674...o10_r1_500.jpg
http://25.media.tumblr.com/d969ac9a2...sc98o1_500.jpg

Goodness, she is gorgeous! And she does look an awful lot like my boy's pretty normal. "Normal" or not, we love them and love showing them off! :)

There should be a "how to id normals" sticky.

Normal

Normal, sometimes the bright normals look like pastels but you should be able to tell the difference by the eyes, i bought one a while back and thought it was a pastel but she lacked the green eyes. i have photos of her in my gallery on my profile along with photos of the normal het albino male i used to have too for comparison on color. she was extremely yellow with a nice stripe. she was a normal as far as i knew and wanted to breed her to see if she had anything special in her. she was a dinker but escaped and we never found her, makes me sad too cuz she was so beautiful :/ i also have a few older started threads on the forums with more pics of her too.

@OP - Just looks like a very nice normal.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sunshinenorcas

It looks a lot like Tali, who is definitely 'just' a pretty normal :) Tali was also a petstore purchase, so who knows what the heck is going on genetically. She's pretty though.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/206d5b1a9...8o4_r1_500.jpg
http://24.media.tumblr.com/a679f72f1...8o3_r1_500.jpg
http://25.media.tumblr.com/19a29cd4a...8o5_r1_500.jpg
http://31.media.tumblr.com/a3beba674...o10_r1_500.jpg
http://25.media.tumblr.com/d969ac9a2...sc98o1_500.jpg

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I would breed her to see if you get anything.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Neal

@OP - Just looks like a very nice normal.


I would breed her to see if you get anything.

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Sorry, raising from the dead a little, but didn't see this until like right now haha

I've played with the idea, but I wouldn't even know where to start in regards to morph. I don't know if she's het for something, a dinker, or just a pretty normal. I've heard het albino because of her high white, but that could just be her. I don't want to throw ALL the morphs at her just to see if there's something hidden in there, because with no background, there's a pretty good chance that she's a normal and she'd just be producing a bunch of normals and het's... and there are a lot of normals and a lot of pretty normals.

And I'm not sure if I want to get full time into the breeding thing. I do know a reptile place near here that I've worked with and I have friends who work there... I've thought about a breeding loan where they keep eggs. IDK. I more want to see what'd she'd produce more then anything :) Which isn't the best mindset for a breeder haha. She's only 400grams though, so I got a lot of time to think about it :)