Making us aware of the function ImageTrim of of the Wolfram Language in a new comment: https://reference.wolframcloud.com/language/ref/ImageTrim.html which allows to crop to a region of interest.
Another thought is to try general purpose image editing software such as Photopea / Photoshop / GIMP / Canva / etc…
Finally, on iOS, there is the concept of creating ‘stickers’ from pictures. Which allows to crop in a content-aware manner with minimal user selection of the subject. See https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/make-stickers-from-your-photos-iph9b4106303/ios This functions quite well, however, it also does not simply crop; instead it removes any background from the selected subject. I am not sure whether or not this is desireable for iNaturalist, or whether or not there are any guidelins on this?
Adding to the general auto-crop requirement, it is crucial to:
- be able to process in bulk. Otherwise, this will not save time and is of no use. The bulk-aspect could be with or without intermediate human review/adjustments step.
It is nice-to-have to:
- retain the location and time metadata of the original images in the cropped images. Otherwise, an additional step needs to be executed / automated, to paste back such metadate onto the cropped image.
On the topic of cropping (not specifically auto-cropping), see also https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/incorporate-basic-image-editing-tools-crop-rotate/1223/.