I say don't cut because it leaves the whole original picture in the thumbnail.

I voted always cut because I don't like black borders. I would like an exception for composite pictures that have a border within the picture. Like your last example. I think that is better than haveing three separate posts.

For the thumbnails generated automatically, if the picture does not have the same shape as the thumbnail, should there be black borders added (vote 1), or should the picture be cut? (vote 3)
Currently (vote 2) both are done: if ratio width/height is larger than 2.35, borders are added top & bottom, else the borders left & right are cut.

I was going to change to solution 3 after the discussion on http://www.imcdb.org/movie_119981-Les-randonneurs.html (in French, sorry) but actually I remember that at first I though that the solution 1 is better (it is not me that made that original thumbnail resizing system).

Solution 1 solves one problem: currently sometimes the car is not in the middle, and so it is not visible on the thumbnail...
But it has one "problem": for movies that are not in 2.35 (i.e. 4:3 or 16:9 movies, quite common too) there will be black borders for lots of movies, and that may look bad.

So it may look better to use solution 3, as it will be similar to current one (2) in all cases, except non-standard pictures (result of pasting pictures together, or pictures cut from the original frame and so that do not have the same shape as the movie frame.

What do you think?

Few examples, first three show what I find annoying with the system where black borders are avoided: the car is not visible...

http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_68485-Dodge-1100-Light-Van-1976.html
1:

2(current) & 3:


http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_28609-Mercedes-Benz-Sprinter-1996.html
1:

2(current) & 3:


http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_28609-Mercedes-Benz-Sprinter-1996.html
1:

2(current) & 3:


http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_4650-Tasso-Bingo.html
1 & 2(current):

3: