So... doing "find . -type f -name '.jpg' -print" is outside of your capabilities?*

No but doing that when iPhoto stores backups of your images is a pain in the arse.

b) talking to the library from apps - the UI was horrible and inconsistent

Automator + Photoshop.

> c) metadata was entirely non transparent and hard to get at.

Yes but that doesn't deal with folders which aren't indexed. For example if you do an iPhoto import it can lag for a while before Spotlight catches up. Bang - synchronisation problem.

This shot me badly.

The whole solution is just bad.