I haven't used iMovie in about a year, and not since the introduction of iMovie 6. As I recall, it was a remarkably easy and simple app to use, but now I have a series of photos on my Desktop that I wish to make into an iMovie project, and I can't get to first base with iMovie 6. I can drag the photos into the Clip palate on the right, but I am at a loss as to how to set the duration of each photo or how to show, much less use, the Ken Burns effect. Double clicking on each photo produces a useless window as does Control-clicking, Option-clicking, or any other type of clicking. The Tutorial in Help is especially useless, and the Tutorial at Apple.com demonstrates something that bears scant resemblance to my iMovie window.

How does one make the Duration panel (with the Ken Burns effect) appear in iMovie 6?

For some reason, it's well hidden.
From iMovie 6.0.3 Help:
"iMovie HD is automatically set to apply pan and zoom effects
to still images that you add to your movie. If you don't want
the pan and zoom effect applied to an image, deselect the Ken Burns Effect
checkbox in the Photo Settings window before you add the photo to your movie.

If you add motion to a photograph in your movie and then change
your mind, you can remove the pan and zoom from it.

To remove the pan and zoom effect from a photo in your movie:
Select the image in the clip viewer or timeline viewer.
Click the Media button, click Photos at the top of the Media pane,
and then click Show Photo Settings.
In the Photo Settings window, deselect the Ken Burns Effect checkbox.
Click Apply."

Although, not a direct answer to your question, this will take you to
where you need to be to set the Ken Burns Effect.

This does me no good. I have my photos placed in the 15 or so squares of the grid of the Clip palate to the right of the viewer. As I stated previously, double clicking or such results only in a Clip Info window in which nothing can be accomplished. If I click on a photo, then go click on the Media button at the bottom, I get a choice of working with Audio or Photos – and when I select Photos , it shows not the photos I have loaded into iMovie, waiting to be entered into the timeline, but I instead get an index of my iPhoto Library – –iPhoto, Library, Last Roll, Last 12 Months. (I don't like iPhoto and have not added photos there in a long time.)

In the pane below that, there is a listing of my various old photos, none of which I have any desire to see, much less use in the project, but the photos are not shown, only their titles, and clicking on these titles does nothing. Below that is a search field which doesn't work at all, and below that is an inactive (grayed-out) button: Show Photo Settings.

Show Photo Settings is what I want to do, but that button is perpetually grayed out, and I don't want to use it on the family photos in my iPhoto library, I want to apply it to the photos already waiting in iMovie's Clip palate.

In the past, this was easy because all the duration controls (along with the KB Effect) were at the top of the Clip palate. One selected a clip or photo, adjusted it to one's desire, then dragged it into the timeline. Simple. Easy.

Now what?

I haven't used the new version of imovie since upgrading, but when I did the upgrade, the old version of imovie was left intact in my applications folder, giving me a choice as to which version I chose to work in. If you have both versions, maybe you would rather work with the format you are most familiar with.

Keith...................
Place the cilp(s) in the timeline viewer, select it (them), and re-read
my last post starting, at "Click the Media button...."

Thanx, Chita! That did the trick! The Ken Burns Effect controls are now revealed on an opaque floating window, but the basic procedure is about the same.

Of course, I yet prefer the old way where you did all your work on the still or clip before introducing it onto the altar of the time line. I am at a loss as to fathom just what the benefit of this change is.

On the other hand, this may merely be a sign of old age on my part. We geezers like things – all things– better the way they were, and progress does noting but ruin everything. (Such is the opinion repeatedly expressed by Judge Scalia.)

Still, the old way certainly was easier and far more obvious – no hidden or floating controls. The experience makes me even more wary of moving up to iLive '08.

Keith, Glad you got it to work.

I don't recall that way as being the actual workflow
in the previous versions. If memory serves me correct
you could 'preview' the effect and settings in the clip pane,
but the effect wasn't applied to the clip while in the clip pane.
The clip had to be placed in the timeline, then choose settings.

The program had to know what items to place it's transitions
between and it couldn't/wouldn't do that in the "holding tank"
of the clip pane. One reason being, you could use an item
from the clip pane multiple times just by option-dragging it
to the timeline. So, the effects were not set on the "original" items there.

iMovie had/has a habit of creating tiny transitions that you don't
know about until you need to edit your work.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: CHunter,