Photo Ball Marker - Summer Promotion - Save $5 - Promo Code: SUMMER09

To All Our Photo Ball Marker Friends

Father's Day was a very busy time and we had some really nice comments sent our way. Our comments page now has over 50 comments on it. We are really proud of our comments page and enjoy showing off your photo ball markers and comments. Send yours my way if it is missing from our comments page.

http://comments.photoballmarker.com

We are working hard to increase our orders and customer base over the next two months. To do this we are offering a $5.00 Off Summer Promotion to our existing customers and friends. This discount is valid for the rest of July and all of August.

To take advantage of our Summer Promotion enter:

Promo Code: SUMMER09

Visit http://www.photoballmarker.com/ and click the Start Here button to build your order. Be sure to enter Promo Code: SUMMER09 on your order.

Feel free to share this blog posting and our

Promo Code: SUMMER09

with your golfing friends.

Our one year Photo Ball Marker anniversary is coming in September and we want to end our first year with a successful promotion.

Have a great day and send any suggestions, comments, or messages back my way.

Ken Barley

sales@photoballmarker.com

Photo Ball Markers - Last Minute Father's Day Present

Photo Ball Markers (PhotoBallMarker.com) make a great Father's Day gift for any golfing dad or grandpa. But, with only a week to go before Father's Day your order can not be manufactured and will not arrive by Father's Day.

We have a very simple suggestion that makes photo ball markers a great last minute Father's Day present.

1. Place your order at PhotoBallMarker.com and have it sent directly to your special golfer.
2. Print out a copy of the order or the confirmation attachment.
3. Put the printout in a nice Father's Day card to be given on Father's Day.
4. Your order will arrive a few days later and your special golfer will get a second celebration of Father's Day.

PhotoBallMarker.com makes creating these custom photo ball markers very easy, fun and affordable. You simply visit PhotoBallMarker.com, and clicks the Start Here button. You are taken to the Order Screen where you upload and edit three pictures to be manufactured into photo ball markers. Next, select a ball marker holder (hat clip, divot tool, or display magnets) and enter name, email and address information, and make a payment of $24.95+$4.95s/h. In 10-14 days the epoxy domed photo ball markers arrive via first class mail.

Our users have really appreciated their special ball markers and have been willing to share kind words with us. Their comments have been terrific and we are very proud to share some of them on our comments page.

A Perfect Father’s Day Gift for the Golfing Dad and Grandpa

These are not your father's golf ball markers, or maybe they are. Chances are they will be soon. More and more, that old penny or dime is being replaced by photo ball markers. As Father's Day approaches, PhotoBallMarker.com just might have that perfect gift for the golfing dad or grandpa. That gift is a custom set of three photo ball markers and a magnetic hat clip or divot tool. Photo ball markers, created by PhotoBallMarker.com, are popping up on golf greens around the country.


After Father’s Day, as you are line up your putt, you may see a special picture of your playing partner’s son or daughter, his cat or dog, or latest vacation shot marking his spot on the green. Or, like Troy Jones’ father, you may see grandkids’ heads arranged in a circle looking back at you. Troy Jones of Texas took a shot from above of his four kids, heads arranged in a circle and gave it as a present to his dad. “My dad loves the one of the grandkids in a circle, no matter how he marks his ball, the marker will be right side up”.


PhotoBallMarker.com makes creating these custom photo ball markers very easy, fun and affordable. The user simply visits PhotoBallMarker.com, and clicks the Start Here button. They are taken to the Order Screen where they upload and edit three pictures to be manufactured into photo ball markers. Next, the user selects a ball marker holder (hat clip, divot tool, or display magnets) and enters name, email and address information, and makes a payment of $24.95+$4.95s/h. In 10-14 days the epoxy domed photo ball markers arrive via first class mail.


“Our first goal is to create a special web experience for our user that is easy and fun to do. Our second goal is to manufacture a product of great value that exceeds our customer’s expectations. With our online picture editing tool and our simple order screen displaying back your photo ball markers, our website experience meets our first goal. Our eight step manufacturing process allows us to manufacture a ball marker of highest quality. The amazing and kind comments we receive means our family of users really are very proud of their creations and we are meeting our second goal.”, explains Ken Barley of PhotoBallMarker.com.


Father’s Day is a very special day and finding that unique and affordable gift can be very challenging. Three special photo ball markers just might be the gift you are looking for.For more information visit us at PhotoBallMarker.com or send questions or inquiries to sales@photoballmarker.com.

Photo Ball Marker - Creating the Sharpest Picture Possible

The Photo Ball Marker picture edit tool is terrific for making it easy for you to upload pictures for your ball markers. You simply select your picture and use the sliders and selection square to select the area of your picture to be used for your Photo Ball Marker.



Our special laser printer prints at a resolution of 600 x 600 dpi. We capture and print a 630 x 630 pixel photo so we have a small buffer when we cut out the one inch diameter circle for your ball marker. We display back a 100 x 100 pixel image (96 dpi) which gives an excellent approximation of what your photo ball marker is going to look like.



After you select a region for your picture, that area is resized into a 630 x 630 pixel picture that is used for printing. Anytime a picture is resized either increasing or decreasing from it's original size some degree of focus is loss in the resizing.



There are two common focus issues when resizing uploaded pictures.



First, a lot of the pictures will be low resolution (96 dpi) and the user selects an area using the selection tool that is much less than 630 x 630 pixels. Our software and printer both make corrections to create the best possible image from the lower resolution picture. But, as each pixel is expanded a slight blurring effect occurs. For most of us, the picture will look fine, but the photographers and graphics people will notice a little blurring.



Second, the digital cameras of today are taking pictures at very high resolutions. This is great if you are printing an 8 x 10 inch photo or a poster. However, it can cause problems when you are printing a one inch photo ball marker. We see selected areas of 2000+ x 2000+ pixels as the large pictures are being uploaded. When this very high resolution selected area is resized by our software and printer a little sharpness is loss. We show this in the image we display back. Again, for most of us this is fine, but the sharp eye can notice the loss of focus. Sometimes, too much resolution is just as bad as too little.



If you do have an eagle eye and want to create the sharpest Photo Ball Marker as possible the secret is very simple. When using the selection tool, select a region of your photo as close to 630 x 630 pixels as possible. To do this you may want to load your image into your own photo editing software and resize it before uploading. The selection tools displays the size of the selection area on the left hand side. The closer to 630 x 630 the sharper the image will be.



Finally, for most of us this resizing isn't even an issue. But, if you are one with an eagle eye, this is the secret to creationg the sharpest picture possible.

Photo Ball Marker - Two Ways To Make Your Picture Fit

Our picture edit tool is terrific. After uploading your picture you can zoom in and out and change the sizing square. Once happy with your selection you submit it and we display your picture inside a ball marker. This allows you to know exactly how your ball marker is going to look before you place your order.

Occasionally, our users want to place the entire picture inside the sizing square. The secret to doing this is to redimension your picture into a square. The new square picture will fit perfectly in the sizing square.

We suggest two methods to do this:

Method 1

Load your picture into your picture editing software and resize the picture into a square. For example, if you have an 800x600 pixel picture resize it into 800x800. Save the resized picture, with a new name, and load the new picture into our picture edit tool. Everything will be stretched a little vertically. But, in most cases, your picture will look fine.

Method 2

Load your picture into your picture editing tool and resize the frame into a square and leave the picture as it. Center the picture in the frame and then fill in the empty space with a color or gradient that looks nice. Save the resized picture, with a new name, and load the new picture into our picture edit tool.

Both of these methods work well if you need to fit your entire picture in our photo sizing square.

Photo Ball Marker - Thanks For The Great Start

To Our Photo Ball Marker Family…

Charlotte and I want to take to take a moment and thank each of you for your support of PhotoBallMarker.com.

Last summer, while we were shopping at Fiddler’s Green, a famous golf shop in Eugene, Oregon, (if you are ever in the neighborhood visit this place) I made an innocent comment about putting photos on ball markers and that started all this. Charlotte and I came up with a nice method for making them and we were off.

Pearl H. (Cool Cat) was our first internet customer and we were pretty excited about that first internet order. Cliff W. (Unbridled Joy) has the most ball markers. Rob H. (lefty with the swing) has posted on some forums and that is a huge help. Gary N. created the first company logo photo markers and they looked great. Everybody has sent wonderful pictures and the nicest comments and each of you have help create the Photo Ball Marker family. Many of your comments are posted on the Comments Page and many more will be. We plan on building the largest Comments Page on the Internet, because your pictures and words are so much better than mine.

Many of you have mentioned you plan on making additional orders as Christmas gifts. I am working on getting a Gift Certificate option available through the website but, that is still not available. The process of making the ball markers does take 3-5 days and they are hand crafted by Charlotte, I only get to look at them from a distance. Occasionally, we have to redo one and then it takes additional time. That being said, I have posted Dec. 13 as the latest we are going to be able to get an order to you before Dec. 25. Even that is cutting things very close.

Photo Ball Marker - How We Got Started

PhotoBallMarker.com got started with a single sentence at the the checkout stand of a famous golf shop in Oregon.

Like many avid golfers in Eugene, Oregon we spend a lot of time wandering and shopping at Fiddler's Green, a famous golf shop just outside of Eugene, Oregon.

During one of our visits in June 2008, Charlotte and I were making our latest and greatest golf purchases, when I pointed to the display of gofl ball markers and mentioned that it would be cool to have photo ball markers.

Char normally shakes off my ideas for products I think are cool but this time she surprised me with her response. She thought it would be a very good product for golfers and make for a wonderful golfing gift.We checked on the internet and found a few sites offering photo ball markers but not the type of product or website experience we envisioned.

We strived to create a quality and long lasting ball marker and combine it with a nice website experience.We worked hard over the summer perfecting our photo ball markers and building a website that is easy and fun to use.

We hope you visit PhotoBallMarker.com and order your set of photo ball markers soon.