You may already know this but I bet there are some out there that don't so I thought I would share.

A lot of times I crop my photos directly on the computer before printing but that it is not always possible, especially when printing a lot all at once.  So sometimes they getting printed even though I know they would look better with some simple crops to take away distracting background details.  For example see the photo below.  It would definitely look better with some of the bold background taken away.

So I make manual crops with my paper cutter. But it is easy to crop to much or too little - and the cuts are permanent!  So I use these.

Pretty boring looking aren't they?  I made them myself out of black cardstock and they are about 2" wide.  I just used some scraps. But look what they can do for you quickly.

By moving them around it is easy to get a visual of what the photo will look like cropped.  Once I have a crop I am happy with I just make small marks in the corners and then get busy with my paper cutter!

So simple and so easy to make.  Hope it helps someone :)

(Oh and thanks to my sister who is the person in the photo - she made a great photo model for this demo!)