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

[JBird]

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:


BP in question with flash off:


My little girl "Monster" with flash on:


Monster with flash off:

[bubblz]

Normal

[Himitsu]

Looks like a pretty normal to me.

[decensored]

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.

[Daybreaker]

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

[JBird]

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!!

[decensored]

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

[JBird]

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?

[decensored]

here's a picture of her when she was younger - pastels have green eyes, and the pattern is usually bussier.


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.

[Daybreaker]

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.