Is there a limit to the number of photos in iMovie?

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Level 1

8 points

Is there a limit to the number of photos in iMovie?

Having a problem entering photos into iMovie from iPhoto. I am trying to drag still photos into iMovie from an album I have made in iPhoto. The album contains 326 still photos. With some difficulty I have managed to drag about half of the photos into iMovie, but now find that it is increasing difficult to move album photos into iMovie. When I try to move more than three album photos into iMovie, the upload stalls about half way and after 30 minutes waiting the only way I can continue to use iMovie is to shut the program down and restart. Fortunately when I restart iMovie I don't lose any of the photos I have dragged into iMovie. The program (iMovie) seems to be telling me that I am trying to add too many photos to the program. Having to shut and restart the iMovie program continually is getting to be a bit of a bother. What is going on and is there a fix??? Is there a better (quicker) way to get an iPhoto album into iMovie? Please help! I need to finish the project in a couple of weeks.😕

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Dec 8, 2011 3:31 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 8, 2011 3:43 PM in response to claflp35

I would recommend that you put the photos that you need in order in an iPhoto album.

326 should be no problem. I have done that many or more.

To drag them into iMovie, open the Photo Browser in iMovie and look for the album. There should be an icon for the album. Drag the icon for the album into your iMovie Project. (rather than dragging the photos one at a time).

Since you are having sluggish behavior, I would recommend that you shut down iMovie, restart your Mac, and start over with a new project, unless you have too much work invested, in which case, try the old project first.

Here is a sample of a project where I dragged about 300 photos into a project from an iPhoto album.

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Answer 2

claflp35 Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 8, 2011 5:21 PM in response to AppleMan1958

AppleMan1958,

Been there and done that. I started by trying to drag all 326 photos in the album, but that didn't work. So I have some limited success dragging 30 photos at a time. Then that did not work. Then I tried dragging 6, 3, 2, and 1 photo at a time. Each time the first and second drag worked, but then stop working. Now I can't drag any photos to the project. This is really strange as I made several iMovies last year and had no problem dragging photos from iPhoto album I found in the iMovie photo bin. I'm starting to get the feeling that something has become corrupted in my iMovie program.

Took a look at your iMovie. You really did a good job. Real professional. Thank you for answering my call for help.😐

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Answer 3

claflp35 Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 8, 2011 8:24 PM in response to AppleMan1958

The photos in my project are JPEG. The photos range in size from 150KB to 8MB. Most photos are in the 3-6MB range. I also have a couple of movies that are 11MB and 185MB .MOV in size. I also have a MacBook Pro with iMovie that does not seem to exibit the same problems. I was able to drag a couple of iPhoto albums into iMovie with no difficulty. This leads me to believe the iMovie program on my iMac may have somehow become corrupted. I have a call into Apple support to see if they can shed some light on the problem. There is possibility that I may have to reinstall iMovie or upgrade to iMovie11. Currently I have iMovie9 on my computer. If you have any other ideas, I would appreciate hearing from you. Thanks for your concern.

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Answer 4

Dec 8, 2011 6:38 PM in response to claflp35

Sorry it is not working for you. I just went back and checked the photos in my project. They were 5 megapixel jpegs. What kind of photos are you using? (TIFF, JPEG, RAW, etc. and what size)

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Answer 5

Dec 8, 2011 8:32 PM in response to claflp35

I think it is likely you can resolve this by reinstalling iMovie, OSX or both. I think you are wise to have Apple walk you through it so you don't do unnecessary work.

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