I have an idea for the Auto Pan Feature in the slide show.
I realize that this is too much for V10 but maybe not for 10.1???
I think that the auto pan feature is great, as I've said before, but it is not consistent and that makes it less useful.
How about this:
Add two or three new fields to MC for images and use a wizard type interface to populate them.
One is called focal point or something similar. Another is Zoom Percentage.
You would set these fields by selecting a group of pics. Go to the Tools menu and select the "Set Autopan" item. A wizard starts that shows each pic you had selected in a window.
For each pic you set the focal point by clicking on the person/people/object that you want to draw attention to. The coordinates of this point are saved in the focal pint field, something like 132X250.
There is a box or drop down where you can select the zoom amount, 10% - 50% in 5% increments. This is stored in the field as 10 or 15 or whatever.
Maybe one more option is whether you want to zoom in/out or both. This isn't necessary though because it would usually be fine either way.
These fields could also be manually filled, but the wizard would make it easier.
Any pics with focal point field empty would not be auto panned. This would allow you to have a setting to 'Always Auto Pan Slideshows'. Only the pics with parameters set would pan, the others would just display as normal.
The nex step would be to be able to set other per picture options, Sepia, Optimize and also what transitions look good with a picture. A left to right sweep might look good with an action shot, where a fade might be good with a wedding.
Once you have parameters set for a bunch of pics you can assemble cool slideshows on the fly with effects that make sense for each picture.