I'd like to request a WP plugin which handles upload and interactive cropping of images, much like:
http://www.webmotionuk.co.uk/jquery-image-upload-and-crop-for-php/

Ultimately am wanting (via a WP plugin) to be able to build pages with an arbitrary number of front-end image upload slots, with interactive image cropping functionality to ensure that the final images conform to a predefined required aspect ratio (but of course maintain highest possible quality).

(The resulting appropriately cropped images will then be further processed by an automated software - which requires each image to be of a certain aspect ratio).

...These links might help in the process:
http://www.pixelzdesign.com/blog_view.php
http://trentrichardson.com/2012/12/11/uberuploadcropper-update-upload-and-crop-multiple-files/#more-1503

…but my own knowledge of programming is limited… therefore - I kindly request that someone more competent than myself might consider tackling this!

Users see a slider with small pic and empty space on both sides, while the div with news title is wider. See what I mean:

http://d.pr/aJsf

I'm going to write a hack for default resize routine after uploading file to make it upscale images if their size is smaller. Yes, it will result in loss of quality but it will not break the desing. On grid-based designs it's a must-have feature. I think it should be in core and an options on Media settings page - a checkbox "Allow upscale images".

a list with defined image sizes to choose from (Editing images independently) would be even greater: Sometimes you just want to crop or edit 1 specific image size.

Long story:
Things change. In 2005, an image above 640px width was considered high-res. Nowadays, images are at least 800px. Things change, we adapt.

I recently had this old wordpress site with 5000+ posts to modernize, going from 2.3 to 3.2.1 at the time of writing. In this redesign, we want post thumbnails, and we also want 11 (!) different image sizes. Most of these size have cropping turned on. I ran a plugin that automatically assigned a post thumbnail to each article, using its images attached. Great.

Unfortunately, the old posts have small image sizes, like 320px width when the set image size is 400px width. And sometimes the best image is not available at the target resolution. I expected the upload script to take my image size as a "must do", not as a "will try to do" and zoom-crop the image so as to produce the 400px width image out of the 320px original...

Thank you for listening.

The way the core is coded seems to make it difficult if not impossible to hook into the process to add this functionality. Even if it was possible, I think this should probably be part of the core.