I am not able to duplicate photos in iphoto. How can I accomplish it.

Question

I am not able to duplicate photos in iphoto. I have tried the two finger click and then went to duplicate... no luck. Went through photo and duplicate... no luck. Used command D... nothing. How can I fix this?

Answer 1

Can you import new photo's?
If not that means something is wrong with your iPhoto files someplace or possibly your .plist file.
As you know, you can right click "show package contents" of the iPhoto Library and get a copy of your Originals out. I would do that immediately so you have a copy safe out of iPhoto's clutches, stick them on a external drive, along with all your other files just in case.
Then next download and run ALL of the free OnyX initial checks, cleaning and maintenance tasks (except the log files) and reboot at the end (in between tasks reboots can be canceled)
http://www.titanium.free.fr/
What this will do is sort of check things out, then clean out all your caches so they rebuild, repair permissions and other tasks that the computer normally does itself, the machine may act a bit slow until the caches and Spotlight are rebuilt, sort of a nuclear cocktail of fixing everything.
If OnyX gives any warnings then state them so here please, you could have a more serious problem that will need addressing like a Repair of your boot drive or failed SMART status etc.
If OnyX comes up clean, and your still having trouble with iPhoto, you can choose to remove (from Pictures), rename and/or archive the iPhoto Library, reboot and restart iPhoto to create a new iPhoto Library, then in iPhoto, import a copy of your Originals from backup.
You can also delete the  com.apple.iphoto.plist  file from your ~/Library/Preferences folder, reboot and restart iPhoto, reset your preferences again, sometimes that clears issues up.
If your STILL having issues with iPhoto, log into another user and try iPhoto there, if no issues then it's something unexplained in the other user. You may want to just switch users transfering files via the Users/Shared folder.
If your having problems with iPhoto in the other user, the program iPhoto ITSELF, is likely the cause. You can resintall it from the bundled 10.6 install disks, or simply install 10.6 again (does a overwrite of exisiting OS X and bundled iLife programs) and immediatly Software update until clear to 10.6.8. This method also kicks out kext and other OS X installed "hacks" from other third party program installers, you wlll need to run those installers again.
If you upgraded 10.6 over 10.5, then you will need to use Pafacist to extract iPhoto from the 10.5 disks, as the 10.6 white disks doesn't have the free iLife, only the grey disks do.
There are also some tricks to rebuild the iPhoto Library, I forget what they are, but if you ask in the iPhoto forum you will get a answer from several of our regulars who are familiar with the subject better than I am.