When purchasing animals where the color of the animal is particularly important, we ask for pictures of the animal next to a dollar bill.

The sellers usually think that the dollar bill is for "size reference". Although it does allow us to judge the size of the animal, the primary reason for the dollar bill is to allow us to judge the colors of the animal. Everyone has access to a dollar bill in their pocket. Everyone can compare the dollar bill they have to the one in the picture in order to judge the accuracy of the colors.

Remember...we're not just trying to allow for the scammers who deliberately "fudge the photo". We're also trying to allow for differences in color, contrast and brightness between the seller's monitor and our monitor. An honest seller could send us a picture that appears 100% correct (colorwise) on their monitor, but when viewed on our monitor makes the animal look much brighter than it really is.

Bear in mind that parts of the picture can be modified independently of the whole picture. If you produce the color strip that you are discussing (something along the lines of a Pantone color strip), what is to stop a determined scammer from modifying the whole picture to make the snake appear better looking...and to modify the color strip in the picture to match the exact "standard" colors of your color strip.

The idea of applying Pantone color strips to morph colors is not a bad idea...just impractical. When used between honest individuals, it would work great; when used by a scammer, it would be basically useless.

Our "dollar bill" method is no more secure. We're still relying on the seller to be honest. What we hope to account for with our method is basically the differences between the calibration of the seller's monitor and our monitor.

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