Cut Away to Photo while audio keeps playing

Unfortunately iMovie will not let you add transitions to clips in the upper timeline. If you put your cursor over a clip in the upper timeline that will reveal fade handles in the upper corners of the clip that you can use to apply a fade in or fade out, or both. You can move each slider individually by holding down the Option key. However, the problem with this is that as the fade cuts in it will reveal the clip in the lower timeline. You can try it to confirm.

There is a workaround that can do what you want. Create an entirely new project for this purpose. Put into the normal timeline the clips that you will want in the upper timeline of your original project. Add whatever transitions that you want. Then share out the movie to your desktop. From there drag it into the upper timeline of your original project.

-- Rich

Yes, there are two ways that you can do that:

1. The first way is to share out (export) the original project as a File to your desktop using the Audio Only setting in the share box. Then drag that audio file into your new project.

2..The second way is to Shift-click on the audio clips in your original project to select them as a range, and then Edit/Copy, Edit/Paste them into the new project. (Open the new project and Edit/Paste there.) If the audio in the original project is not background audio, but rather embedded in the video clips, then you will need to Shift-click on the Video clips that contain the audio, and do a Modify/Detach Audio. Then select the detached audio clips and Edit/ Copy, Edit/Paste them into the new project.

-- Rich

You are doing it correctly. Snug up the video and photos together in the upper timeline, so that they are touching, and then there won't be a cut back to the original video before switching to the next image.

-- Rich