[rhythmdevils]

So in conclusion, which way is better for adding the files manually if the plug-ins don't work?  Still doesn't seem clear which way embeds.  I guess I could do an experiment and find out...
 
1.  highlight tracks, change artwork display in bottom left corner to "selected item" and drag artwork into this box
 
2. use "get info" dialogue box
 
3. ?

 

[grokit]

1. Highlight the album, not the track
 
2. get info (confirm yes)
 
3. copy from clipboard into the artwork area or drag your artwork into it
 
4. click "OK" (confirm yes)

 

[Ham Sandwich]

 
Quote:

1. Highlight the album, not the track
 
2. get info (confirm yes)
 
3. copy from clipboard into the artwork area or drag your artwork into it
 
4. click "OK" (confirm yes)

You still need to be careful though with iTunes to make sure that it is embedding and displaying an unaltered version of the cover image you drag-and-drop or copy from the clipboard.  There are situations where iTunes will recompress the image when embedding it in the file.  And what iTunes actually saves in the ITC2 file that it uses to cache the cover images can also be altered (rescaled, recompressed, resized).
 
If you are picky about your cover art and don't want to risk having it altered or degraded in the process of embedding or associating the image with an album then you need to use something other than iTunes.
 
I just added a test cover image to an album in iTunes (for Windows) by dragging the image to the "Get Info" dialog box.  The album is all MP3.  The image was properly embedded in the MP3 file tags for each song in the album.  The embedded image was unaltered from the original image (I used a JPG file).  But what got saved in the ITC2 file in the iTunes album artwork cache folder was three reszied and rescaled PNG versions of the cover.  All three images were smaller and rescaled from the original image.  The original was 600x540 cause it is from a digipak style cover.  The three PNG files were 128x128, 256x256, and 400x400.  Nothing at the original resolution and original JPG. 
 
I'm far to picky and obsessive/compulsive about my album artwork to trust iTunes to do the right thing and not alter the image.

 

[TySylicus]

Thanks for all the great info guys.
I'll check out those programs Ham Sandwich, and run some experiments with deleting and re-importing to see what's what.

Even though I don't have a MAC grokit, looking for artwork on Amazon isn't something I've thought of before. Thanks for the idea.

A solid point rhythmdevils. iTunes music would auto-find the artwork files, probably even if I don't have an option turned on for it. I'm old school so most of my music is CD purchased and the majority of it is from Asia.

 

[grokit]

Quote:

 

Even though I don't have a MAC grokit, looking for artwork on Amazon isn't something I've thought of before. Thanks for the idea.

I had downloaded that widget and forgot to try it out until I came across this thread, so thank you, rhythmdevils

 
I noticed that when Amazon Album Art can't find the art or connect to Amazon, it gives the option to auto-search Google Images, which I hadn't thought of.

 

[rhythmdevils]

Quote:

A solid point rhythmdevils. iTunes music would auto-find the artwork files, probably even if I don't have an option turned on for it. I'm old school so most of my music is CD purchased and the majority of it is from Asia.

 
Even if it's a purchased CD, itunes still might not be able to re-connect the image to the music files if they are not embedded.  For itunes to re-connect non-embedded artwork, the artwork has to be added via the "add album artwork" feature that comes built into itunes, which allows itunes to add the necessary tags or whatever.  Works for more mainstream albums, and maybe saves some space for ipods.  But the rest of the albums itunes can't find for whatever reason, have to be done manually somehow, so won't reconnect unless they are embedded. 
 
I wish itunes would just let you choose what it does in preferences, so that it would be uniform for the whole library. 
 
interesting points about compresion hamsandwich!  I never realized it went to such lengths.  What is the point?  Are you adding album artwork that is higher resolution than 72dpi?  Because I doubt that 3 compressed png files of different sizes would be smaller than one jpg that is 600x700 @ 72dpi.  If you got the jpg from the web it is likely already compressed a fair amount. 

 

[jfeser2]

The easiest solution to this problem is to put a file called "cover.jpg" in with each album.  Embedding the artwork in the file works sometimes, but support is often lacking, and I wouldn't put it past iTunes to use an unconventional method for art storage.
 
It takes some setting up, but once most of your library is done, you'll always have album art.

 

[Kuze]

Best tagger out there: Tag&Rename, it tags album art directly into the song details, i haven't seen any lost.
http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm

 

[shubhangam]

You should also try Teridon's scripts
 
http://mysite.verizon.net/teridon/itunesscripts/index.html
 
Using the insert_album_artwork script should do the needful and insert all downloaded artwork into the mp3 files ID3 tags.
 
It also has other useful features.
 
I have been using this since iTunes 7 (on windows) and it works perfectly.
 
Hope it works for you as well

 

[Ham Sandwich]

 
Quote:

interesting points about compresion hamsandwich!  I never realized it went to such lengths.  What is the point?  Are you adding album artwork that is higher resolution than 72dpi?  Because I doubt that 3 compressed png files of different sizes would be smaller than one jpg that is 600x700 @ 72dpi.  If you got the jpg from the web it is likely already compressed a fair amount. 

The artwork I add is usually 600x600 and of as high of quality that I can find or create myself.  I get what I can from albumartexchange and other quality sources.  What I can't find online I'll scan and edit myself and if I do a good enough job I'll post the result to albumartexchange.  Scanning and editing though takes hours and hours to do well.  After spending all that time editing just to see iTunes alter and degrade the image?  Yikes!  I'd go postal.
 
JPG compression is a lot like MP3 compression.  Both are lossy.  If you know what to look for it is easy to see JPG artifacts when the compression gets too aggressive.
 
In the case of my test artwork at 600x540, when iTunes alters it to be 400x400 that also changes the aspect ratio.  Objects become taller and skinnier than they should be.  What was once a circle is now an ellipse.  When I look at that album in cover flow I see the square version with altered aspect ratio.
 
So yes, I'm a bit picky and obsessive about album art quality.

 

[Dzjudz]

I just keep a cover.jpg in each album folder and use Mp3Tag to embed.

 

[rhythmdevils]

Quote:

 

The artwork I add is usually 600x600 and of as high of quality that I can find or create myself.  I get what I can from albumartexchange and other quality sources.  What I can't find online I'll scan and edit myself and if I do a good enough job I'll post the result to albumartexchange.  Scanning and editing though takes hours and hours to do well.  After spending all that time editing just to see iTunes alter and degrade the image?  Yikes!  I'd go postal.
 
JPG compression is a lot like MP3 compression.  Both are lossy.  If you know what to look for it is easy to see JPG artifacts when the compression gets too aggressive.
 
In the case of my test artwork at 600x540, when iTunes alters it to be 400x400 that also changes the aspect ratio.  Objects become taller and skinnier than they should be.  What was once a circle is now an ellipse.  When I look at that album in cover flow I see the square version with altered aspect ratio.
 
So yes, I'm a bit picky and obsessive about album art quality.

yeah, that would piss me off too!  I've never seen it happen to me.  It must be heavy compression then if you can see the differences between an already compressed jpg, and 3 of the png's it creates are smaller than 1 original already compressed jpg.  Yikes.  Must be a PC habit, because I've entered artwork every way imaginable...

 

[grokit]

 
Quote:

So yes, I'm a bit picky and obsessive about album art quality.

I'll say, my first priority is having an image over not having one, then that it is actually the correct image; after that, well lets just say that I don't get into it any further!

 

[TySylicus]

Wow. I really got you guys moving didn't I? Thanks for all the great info. Now I have a few good programs to try; I'll pick whichever I like best.
 
In the end, I'm not as picky as Ham Sandwich. Since I only use iTunes, it's the only place where album artwork is displayed and is an issue. Basically I'm happy as long as the artwork it present, and correct; not too worried about size or quality.
 
Mostly, I'm worried about computer/iTunes failure resulting in a loss of all my hard work, and me having to drop all my files back into iTunes and start all over with filling in those empty album artwork boxes.
 
____
 
A quick question about backing up using iTunes:
If I backup using File>Library>Back up to disc. Is this saving a copy to disc of all the music files in my iTunes Music folder only? (the ones I let iTunes sort automatically)
Or will it pull all the music files off my external drive and back them up to the disc as well?
 
I tried to do a back up yesterday but was told I need four discs to do so, after inserting a DVD-DL (DVD-9). That's a lot of space! haha. Then again, it says I have 22.2 GB of music plus about 4 GB of videos.

 

[grokit]

Quote:

A quick question about backing up using iTunes:
If I backup using File>Library>Back up to disc. Is this saving a copy to disc of all the music files in my iTunes Music folder only? (the ones I let iTunes sort automatically)
Or will it pull all the music files off my external drive and back them up to the disc as well?
 
I tried to do a back up yesterday but was told I need four discs to do so, after inserting a DVD-DL (DVD-9). That's a lot of space! haha. Then again, it says I have 22.2 GB of music plus about 4 GB of videos.

On a Mac, the easy way is to hook up another HDD that is the same size as your main drive, and let it run Time Machine, the coolest back up utility ever. It keeps a current backup of everything on your boot HDD, and lets you "go back in time" to retrieve anything that you deleted or corrupted, or lets you restore the whole deal onto a new one if your boot HDD fails.
 
It's been out for awhile now, maybe there is a PC version.
 
Windows Vista has a Backup and Restore Center with a System Restore feature at Control Pane>System and Maintenance, I've never used it but just went there and compressed the backup partition that I believe it created. It runs on a partition of the main drive by default, so unless that is something you can change it would not be good for an HDD failure but should evidently work for a system restore.