What do you think of a script which helps to create display pictures?

What I mean is a script which lets you select the zone you want to use as your personal avatar on msn when choosing a new one.
I'm used to use photos as display pictures, and I want to select the area I want to display, coz usually photos are of a wrong format, there is so much background and I want to just show the faces of the people...
Somethimes messenger cuts out part of the photo coz they're rectangular and msn avatar is a square...

So what I'm asking is a script which has a:

• Crop feature (selects the area of the photo u are interested in)
  
• A magnifier feature (to obviously select the proper area )
  
• A "canvas size feature", which adds some black (or whatever) space if the user selects the whole rectangular photo as avatar. This "border" would prevent the picture from being cut, and would make it a square.

Couldn't you use something like Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Fireworks or even Microsoft Paint?

It's what I actually do...but I have to load those heavy softwares each time I want to put a new display picture...

Wouldn't be easier just to "pick the area" I want to use as my avatar from inside messenger?!

You can use stuff online if you want like:

• http://www.splashup.com/
  http://imageeditor.net

MS Paint can do it easily, no need to open up any "heavy software"

i agree it's a bit of a pain, but you can use paint to crop a picture to exact square size in a matter of a couple of minutes