Best way to clone wp_image_editor on front end?

Hi,

I need to create an upload plugin for the wp front end, so that users can upload an image along with some input fields. For the image, I’d like to implement a crop/resize tool, very similar to the wp_image_editor function from the wp backend.

I wonder what would be the best method to do this. I thought about just copy/paste the function into my own plugin/theme as a new function and make the adjustments. But I’m not sure if there might be a more elegant method to just use the existing function somewhere in my own code.

Any help appreciated.

Marian