Photos to Film: Stopmotion Animation - After Effects: Issue

[April-Anna]

Hey so I was using 2012 version of After Effects which had all my settings set up automatically which my ex who is more tech savvy then me had set up because I only use After Effects (though I want to learn) for one thing and that's to take 1000's of photos & turn it into a basic film for running through Adobe Premiere to make stopmotion animation. 

They yanked my licence without warning and was forced onto the new version of the program which doesn't have my settings & things are almost the same but not quite.... So what happens is when I drop & drag as I normally would for a new composition, for some reason all the photos stack on top of each other as all the same length instead of the automatic function it did before to make sure they are not stacked like that but are each photograph/frame about a second or so each but are spread out like frames of a film - not stacked on top of each other. I shouldn't have to do this manually. I know I ran into the same problem the very first time I used the program in 2012 but I don't remember how to fix it and don't remember what my ex did to make everything work automatically. 

I have taken a photo of an old file that the frames are arranged  the way I want (it used to do that automatically when I drop & drag) and what it is doing right now with the stacking thing I am trying to describe. 

[Rick Gerard]

The images need to be numbered sequentially. Something like image0001.png, image0002.png, image0003.png, and so on. You can't use names like Image1.png through Image900.png because they won't sequence properly.  Then when you select the folder and any image in the sequence, you must make sure that import as an image sequence is selected in the Import popup. It's the same for Premiere Pro or After Effects. 

[April-Anna]

But that's not addressing the issue. I already know that part. 

The issue isn't about the order they are loaded in. The issue is not the name of the file. The issue is that they are all loading as the same length stacked on top of each other; look at both photographs & you'll see the difference between the two photos - please ignore file names. It's the fact that they are stacked; one photo is a sample of how it should look, one photo is a sample of how it should not look. I opened up an old file & just did a quick demo to show what I was talking about. 

[April-Anna]

[Ali Jaber]

To set the duration of imported pics, go to preferences > import and set the duration of the imported file to whatever you like

But as Rick said before this is not the best way to import sequences. I would import it as a sequence using the checkbox:

After that I will control the playback speed of the sequence using right-click on the imported file > interpret footage > main, and setting the frame rate:

[Rick Gerard]

Here's how I sequence layers and you'll learn how to morph shapes at the same time: