I've been looking throught the plists of iMovie and iPhoto and there are a few interesting things in there:
iPhoto - HierarchicalAlbums
This can be set true or false but doesn't do anything. Hopefully its existence shows that in a future version of iPhoto we'll be able to organise our Albums in folders, so you could have this structure for example:
Code:
2002
January
February
March
etc..
2003
January
etc..
You could then select a specific month to see just the images for that month or select a year to see all the images for all the months. I think this would really help with organising things in iPhoto (I wish they would do this for iCal calendars as well).
Pure speculation that this is what hierarchical albums would mean but sounds possible.
iMovie - Ken Burns Effects
I've found the Ken Burns interface a bit limited. There is another solution (which some might say is even trickier), the plist for iMovie contains the current settings for the effect:
<key>PanZoomEndZoom</key>
<real>2.465347e+00</real>
<key>PanZoomOffsetEndX</key>
<real>0.000000000000000e+00</real>
<key>PanZoomOffsetEndY</key>
<real>4.900000000000000e+01</real>
<key>PanZoomOffsetStartX</key>
<real>0.000000000000000e+00</real>
<key>PanZoomOffsetStartY</key>
<real>0.000000000000000e+00</real>
<key>PanZoomStartZoom</key>
<real>1.000000000000000e+00</real>
If you need to fine tune your effect you can close down iMovie, edit the numbers and then reopen to get those settings.
This isn't going to be easy to do but someone could write an app which produces these numbers and allows you to align things more easily.
A tip for the Ken Burns effect. You can easily combine multiple ken burns effects to make multiple movements around one image:
1. Produce your first ken burns effect + press apply.
2. Select the image again in the iPhoto panel (this tells iMovie to create a new clip and not to change the one you just created).
3. Press Reverse.
4. Leave the Start settings alone and adjust the finish settings.
5. Apply it.
6. Repeat steps 2 to 6 as many times as you want.
iMovie - autoApplyPanZoomToImportedStills
If you import a still image by dragging it into iMovie or using File-Import it will automatically have the current Ken Burn effect applied to it. If you set this to false the image is loaded as a still image, you can then use show info to easily set the duration of the still image. There is another way to do this, when the image is being imported you can cancel the render by pressing cmd + . (full stop)
You can also use the last method on an image you selected from your iPhoto library, hit cmd + . while it is rendering to cancel the Ken Burns effect + just have a still image.
Finally has anyone else noticed that the timecode shown for a clip has changed in iMovie 3. In iMovie2 it showed the time + date the clip was recorded on your camera, in iMovie 3 it shows the time and date you imported it from your camera to your computer! I think the iMovie 2 way was much better. I haven't checked if it leaves the timecode intact when you export back to your camera, I really hope so. (Obviously it couldn't do this if you have added effects and transitions to clips but in iMovie 2 it was very easy to clean up tapes to keep just your good clips and retain all the timecode information.)
OK, just checked it and it does leave your original timecode alone.
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