Final Cut Pro integrates with iPhoto
Using iPhoto with Final Cut is an effective work flow for managing still images.
You can drag right from the iPhoto interface right into your Final Cut
Pro sequence. iPhoto also responds to the still / freeze duration in
the Final Cut Pro User Preferences. A very effective configuration is
to have the Viewer, Canvas, and Timeline on your primary screen, and
the Browser, iPhoto, and Finder on the second screen. The Configuration
of the second screen is important, because you want to be able to
access all of the different interfaces without having to hide or move
one to get to another. First position your Project tab all the way to
the left, next tear the effects tab off and position it next to the
project tab, then position iPhoto in the center of the screen, so there
is some space on either side of the interface, last of all position the
Finder all the way to the left leaving a little space of the left side
and at the bottom. Configuring your second screen in this way will
allow you access any of the interfaces without having to hide or move
one or more of them. This configuration promotes using iPhoto as your
still image bin(s) (the term Bins comes from days ago when editors
kept the individual clips of film in Bins under their workstation).
With iPhoto it is much easier to sort and access images than using the
Browser. You can apply effects, crop, or make image adjustments in
iPhoto before taking the image to Final Cut Pro, but rotation will not
be recognized. I highly recommend this workflow. One thing to keep in mind is that the photos that come out of iPhoto are coming from the iPhoto Library, so if you move the project file to another machine that does not have that iPhoto Library, the images will go offline, and will need to be reconnected to the images in your project folder that you originally had imported into iPhoto.
