Although Wordpres v2.9 not released but it has revealed a number of area features in the next version.
One highlight feature is to allow administrators can edit images uploaded with a few simple tasks such as resize, rotate images, ... Images of this feature is not officially be announced, I found it on few small website.

WordPress Image Editor

It has long been known that WordPress 2.9 will add some features for image editing - the users want these features, right in the core and not as a Plugin. You can get a first insight into the current development version.
The following screenshot, courtesy of WP-Engineer, confirms this:

WordPress Image Editor with images

Though the image editing tools are pretty basic, it is an excellent start and will definitely be very useful for bloggers who use images very frequently.