iMovie. The pictures become blurry when transferred from All Photos to the clipboard.

I had the same problem and my movie looked terrible. I have done many movies before and never had this problem. I exported each and every pic that was a problem (around 100) which was no small task to my desktop and dragged them back into iMovie and it worked. The photo cleared and the black edges on the sides of these pics were gone. So much better! It must be from the latest iMovie version- needs to be fixed, really awful time consuming glitch.

This did the trick for me. I had edited the photos in Lightroom then imported them into Photos. These were blurry when I took them into iMovie. I exported them from Photos to a folder on my desktop, then into iMovie. They now look great.

Are you by any chance using iCloud Photos with optimized storage enabled? That can cause some photos to be in the cloud until they are downloaded. So, I am thinking possibly that the blurry photos might be low res thumbnails with the the originals still in the cloud. That could cause them to display blurry when dragged to the timeline. If you think that that might be your situation you can try downloading the photos before importing.

-- Rich

Some more details would help. What is the resolution and format of the blurry photos versus the photos that are not blurry? Sometimes the HEIC format can cause issues. What is the precise iMovie version and operating system that you are using? When you say "clipboard" I assume that you mean the "timeline" where the editing is done.

You could try increasing the resolution of the blurry photos and using the JPEG format.

Another thing you could try is deleting preferences. Open iMovie while holding down the Option and Command keys and select to delete preferences in the box that appears. iMovie will open in a new empty library. If so, reopen your old library to get back to your projects. Possibly you may need to reboot to set the changes.  Deleting preferences is a safe procedure that will not cause data loss or disruption to your project.

Something else that sometimes helps is to create a new project and see if the photos display properly there.

-- Rich

My photos are high quality jpg images. When you try to put some of the images in iMovie, they become blurry. Not all of them, but just some of the photos. I deleted my preferences, and still have the problems. In some cases, they will also just be a black image, and it doesn't recognize the image at all.

I've used iMovie for years, and never had these types of issues before. You can only use about 2/3 of the photos, all taken with the same camera, a Nikon. I also tried to make a trailer, that won't let me drop in any photo. So the trailer is useless. It runs, but then there are 3 seconds of blackness as it won't take any image in my photo database.

I was perfectly happy with iMovie until the latest version became available. For the "what's new in iMovie", I just wish they'd make it useable.

I am having the same problem and have used iMovie for years. I am pulling files that are on my local Mac. I import the album that I want to get my files from and then when drag those files into my project - they become either unrecognizable, blurry or just black/blank. I am using the most recent iOS on a brand new Mac mini.

I am also having the same ploblem, I was using Imovies for years on a 2012 Macbook and not a ploblem, now I have upgraded to a 2023 Macbook Air with a new version of IMovies, and I can only use 2/3 of my photos taken with my Iphones ( old or new photos) they become either unrecognizable, blurry or just black/blank. They are very clear in the photo album, but when you drag them to the timeline that's when they are Black or blurry! I have saved them to my desktop and drag them acoss and same thing happens. I think it's the new updates on Imovie!!

Hmmmmm. With so many of you having the same problem I suspect that Apple will need to address this. Try contacting Apple Support and talking to the techs there. Click on the Support item at the top of this forum's screen and navigate to a place where you can enter your phone number. The support techs have the capability of remotely accessing your Mac, that we cannot do here.

If you go that route, it would help others who may have this problem if you could post back and let us know what the Apple techs came up with.

-- Rich

I actually spent an hour on the phone with Apple last week. They struggled a bit with helping me. First they reset my settings back to the original settings. Then they thought my Movie Library was corrupted, so they set up a new library. The new library worked for photos that I had previously had problems with on one iMovie. After I hung up, I started having the same problem (blurry photo of a black screen). I also had seen your post about a possible problem with iCloud storage. So I added more storage space. I just tried something new too based on another post, I exported 6 photos I had issues with out of photos, and imported them back into photos. 5 of the 6 are now visible in iMovie. The 6th photo is black, and looks like a thumbnail. I'm going to try Apple again next week.

I still need to spend some time with Apple support to figure out why I can not use the JPG files I have in photos in an iMovie. However, I have been able to take a group of JPG files and put on a flash drive, then import them directly into iMovie. iMovie shouldn't be like that, but at least it works (at least so far). I brought in 80 photos, of which 1/2 I had issues with before (blurry or black), and all 80 showed up clearly in iMovie coming directly from the flash drive. At least that is a work around. Thank you all for your support here.

This was helpful. I was having this problem too, and from Rich's advice I dragged the photo from Apple's Photos app onto my desktop, and from there into iMovie. The blurriness is gone. Thank you!

smzc,

Great. Glad your iMovie problem got fixed.

-- Rich

Thanks for posting back.

-- Rich

At least you seem to be getting closer to a solution,

Rich

We had this problem when trying to use images straight from Photos. Instead, we put them on the desktop and then imported them into IMovie, which worked.