Imovie photo slideshow help

Question

Hello! I am using imovie for the first time to make a photo slideshow set to music. I am up to about 100 pictures and for some reason, each one I add will only display for a few seconds. I change it to 5 seconds, and it will adjust but it will also reduce the # of seconds another slide displays. The more I change, the more that I see are only displaying for 1 or 2 seconds.
Is there a maximum length in imovie or is this something else?
Help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

The way transitions work is that they will take half from the slide in front and half from the slide behind.
For example, if you have 3 five second slides, it looks like this:
{5 second slide} {5 second slide} {5 second slide}
The total length is 15 seconds.
If you add two second transitions, it will look like this:
[4 second slide} {2 second transition} {3 second slide} {2 second transition} {4 second slide}
The total length is still 15 seconds.
For many applications, especially in video, this is the way most people want it.
If your prefer that all slides stay at 5 seconds with a two second transition in between, there is a trick. The total length in my example will now be 19 seconds, which is unacceptable for video, but is OK for stills.
To do this, go into File/Project Properties and set the default photo length to be 5 seconds, and set it to apply to all photos in the project, not just ones that are added in the future.