Photos on SD card are "read only"?

Using Motorola Electrify M (Jelly Bean 4.1.2), when I try to use photos to set as contact, I get the message that "read only contacts cannot be used." My contacts are synced from MS Outlook on my PC.....any idea what is going on? It does seem that I can use photos I save to the camera, not to the external SD memory card so I can't tell if the problem is the photo or the contact?

Problem solved. I go to a specific contact>edit and the click the photo icon and it goes to gallery to choose a photo to set as contact. It just won't allow the process to be initiated directly from the gallery. Kind of odd that it says you can set photo as contact in gallery, but then says contact is read only. :D