Here is my ultimate image resizer that preserves transparency for gif's and png's and has an option to crop images to fixed dimensions (preserves image proportions by default)
<?php
function image_resize($src, $dst, $width, $height, $crop=0){
  if(!list($w, $h) = getimagesize($src)) return "Unsupported picture type!";
  $type = strtolower(substr(strrchr($src,"."),1));
  if($type == 'jpeg') $type = 'jpg';
  switch($type){
    case 'bmp': $img = imagecreatefromwbmp($src); break;
    case 'gif': $img = imagecreatefromgif($src); break;
    case 'jpg': $img = imagecreatefromjpeg($src); break;
    case 'png': $img = imagecreatefrompng($src); break;
    default : return "Unsupported picture type!";
  }
  if($crop){
    if($w < $width or $h < $height) return "Picture is too small!";
    $ratio = max($width/$w, $height/$h);
    $h = $height / $ratio;
    $x = ($w - $width / $ratio) / 2;
    $w = $width / $ratio;
  }
  else{
    if($w < $width and $h < $height) return "Picture is too small!";
    $ratio = min($width/$w, $height/$h);
    $width = $w * $ratio;
    $height = $h * $ratio;
    $x = 0;
  }
  $new = imagecreatetruecolor($width, $height);
  if($type == "gif" or $type == "png"){
    imagecolortransparent($new, imagecolorallocatealpha($new, 0, 0, 0, 127));
    imagealphablending($new, false);
    imagesavealpha($new, true);
  }
  imagecopyresampled($new, $img, 0, 0, $x, 0, $width, $height, $w, $h);
  switch($type){
    case 'bmp': imagewbmp($new, $dst); break;
    case 'gif': imagegif($new, $dst); break;
    case 'jpg': imagejpeg($new, $dst); break;
    case 'png': imagepng($new, $dst); break;
  }
  return true;
}
?>
Example that I use when uploading new images to the server.
This saves the original picture in the form:
original.type
and creates a new thumbnail:
100x100.type
<?php
  $pic_type = strtolower(strrchr($picture['name'],"."));
  $pic_name = "original$pic_type";
  move_uploaded_file($picture['tmp_name'], $pic_name);
  if (true !== ($pic_error = @image_resize($pic_name, "100x100$pic_type", 100, 100, 1))) {
    echo $pic_error;
    unlink($pic_name);
  }
  else echo "OK!";
?>
Cheers!