Missing Album Artwork

Hi,

Rather than spend more frustrating hours on this, I thought I would ask the question as I am sure many, if not most, of you have been down the same path!

I have a lot of missing album artwork. I have tried to import a few covers using Google Image searches, but with relatively poor success. I look for images generally better than 300 x 300 pixels, scroll through to the full size image and then I drag into the itunes screen. But the images I get are often very grainy.

Anyone any ideas on how it can be better done?

Also, I have dragged in several versions of artwork and they sit on top of each other in itunes rather than replacing the previous version. How do I go about deleting the images I don't want?

Any advice much appreciated!

Phil

Hi Phil - I mainly use Amazon's images of the albums. I click on the image to make it larger (works most of the time) and drag that one over to the album in iTunes. There are some high resolution album art websites around but I can't think of them right now. Maybe someone will chime in here.

To remove one of the two, or more, album covers go to the Get Info section of a track or album and click on the artwork tab. From there you can select single covers and hit delete. I think this is what you're looking to accomplish.

I use Coverscout. Works well and quite fast.

Chaps, Thanks for the advice. Have successfully deleted my duplicates Chris - thanks. Gonzo - does Coverscout cost anything?

Phil

I think 29.99, but I can't remember. www.equinux.com is the mfr.

Thanks, After I asked the question I found it - can get for £13 or so through the Apple store. Only issue I have is it has one review on Apple store and that is bad! It says avoid because it imports very pixelated images. Not sure if this has been your experience?

I had a go with Chris's suggestion of imports from Amazon and it works OK, but images are nowhere near the quality of those via itunes/Gracenotes (when indeed itunes finds the right image or, indeed, one at all!).

Phil

Think of it more as a browser application to search for and import album covers for itunes. I did it manually in a morning for all 1200 or so cds. Some of the covers could look better, but I could have spent longer looking for better ones too.

Easily worth the price.

http://www.coveralia.com/ is a good source of cover art. To search, use the 'Buscador:' box. Most artwork there is of a fairly high resolution. I use that and occasionally I go painstakingly through the process of searching Google for those hard to find albums.

All of my artwork in iTunes is at 900x900 pixels in size and with a resolution of 200 ppi. I find that works well for me. I normally download larger sized images and then convert them to the above size and resolution using GraphicConverter (http://www.lemkesoft.com/xd/public/content/index._cGlkPTE5Mw_.html), finally tarting things up with the auto levels function. I save the images as JPEG with a quality setting of 90%.

I think I may have way too much time on my hands!

--

djp

Thanks all, through your suggestions and help I have hit upon an interim method that seems to work fine. Go to Google Images, go to Advanced and select search for medium or large images for the album you want. Select what looks to be highest res cover, click through to full size then drag and drop. Seems to work pretty well.

Phil

Hi Phil. Your Google Image searches do indeed work but I found them really tedious. On the freebie side of things, I'd still go along with Chris and Amazon. You need to open up amazon.co.uk (music) but keep that as your back-up and open amazon.com as your 'first hit'. Don't sub to music - keep the search to the whole site. The reason for this is that amazon stateside sells MP3 downloads which do not fall under the music sub so the whole site search gives a greater chance of a 'hit', plus the download art is pukka quality.

Another advantage of using the site of our friends across the water is that as you type in your search Mr Amazon pops up with a few suggestions which speeds things up - unlike amazon.co.uk which is very clunky and if you so much as miss out a colon it will announce item not found.

Thanks David, will give this a go. Phil.

Certainly some good suggestions on this thread to find artwork. I'm busy ripping albums and need lots of artwork. I'm under the impression I should be able to find and download art from the iTunes store. But when I try this it tells me I need an iTunes account. I have an iTunes account. If I just go to the store, I don't see a way to find the art and get it into my iTunes program.

Suggestions?

Make sure you're signed in to your iTunes account. Then right-click an album or track and select Get Album Art (or something similar). Let us know what happens.

Beowulf,

You can select an option in itunes to get album artwork as you rip. Alternatively, as Chris says, you can selct option later - don't do it by track though - select the whole album then "get artwork".

For those that itunes can't find or gets wrong (!!!!) I have settled on Google images. Select advanced in Google images, go for medium size, select and enlarge, then drag in. Good luck!

Phil

Somebody may have mentioned this, but I also goto the artists webpage and looks at their discography to hunt covers down. They usually are vain enough to have pretty high res cover shots! Heh.

The other thing to look out for is that the iTunes store may not have exactly the same name as the downloaded information from Gracenote. When this happens, change the name of the album to match the iTunes name, then download the artwork.

Peter

I recently came across this application for OS X (Mac only). It's available free through VersionTracker (www.versiontracker.com). It searches the database in Amazon. There are some glitches and it sometimes gets the wrong album, sometimes WAY wrong! There are no instructions how to use it, but it's fast and free and if Fetch Art can't find it I keep Amazon open in a separate window and search manually.

Use as follows: First make sure that Fetch Art is closed. Open iTunes and select the song/songs that you want to search. Open Fetch Art, it will automatically start searching for your song/songs. If it gets the correct art click the button to add it to iTunes. Close Fetch Art. Select the next song/songs. Open Fetch Art... as above. The thing most users miss is that Fetch Art has to be closed when you open iTunes and select the songs. Hope it works for you.

Cheers,

I know it is hard work but I scan my own covers, clean them up in Photoshop, save them as PNG files, and then embed them into the file using the "get info" method.

If you wish to embed the covers supplied by iTunes, right click on the cover, select copy, then go to "get info" and paste. The album art is then permanently embedded in your music file.

Hello everyone,

I have created a page on my website and posted high resolution scans of my album artwork. There are currently over 700 covers and will be more as time goes on. Anyway, I there are 2 sizes for each album cover: 800px X 800px and 1200px X 1200px. Please take the time to view my page and fill in some of the missing art for your collection.

http://www.magiciansnephew.com/album_art/index.php

Enjoy,

Mike

Mike, just be aware similar sites that have collected high resolution scans of album art have been closed down by the RIAA in the past...

Thank you for the heads up.

I guess I should have realized that would be the case. Fans cannot have anything without the RIAA stepping in and making life miserable for people trying to make the media experience better.

I sympathise with your feelings on that one, Athlon. Nice website you've put together btw

Personally I've never been completely happy with iTunes automatic function, and I usually end up making my own either from my own scans or by cleaning up something I've found via google image search or amazon. I'll save a jpeg of the artwork in the same folder as the album as well as embedding into the files via the iTunes get info command. It's time consuming, but I think it's worth the effort. Before I started using coverflow and itouch remote I didn't worry so much, but now I can get a little obsessive about getting perfectly square artwork and eliminating those default note symbols.

For fans of "the amazon method" who also use macs, there's a nice widgetized version here:

www.widget-foundry.com/widgets/amazonart.htm

On occasion I've used www.allcdcovers.com - it's user uploaded album art, often with front and back cover, inlays and even scans of the cds.

Finally, I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but if you starting to feel a little OCD and need a break from searching out the perfect album art, I highly recommend googling for mspaint album covers for some distinctly non bit-perfect versions of your favourite albums. There's a nice game based on ms paint album art here: http://www.republic.co.uk/page/albumcoverquiz if you're into pop/rock and like time wasting stuff like that (I do - I've managed to track down all except one!)

Also not forgetting a visit to http://www.bizarrerecords.com/ for a look at some album covers you (probably) would never admit to owning, even if it was you that recorded it in the first place.

free, open source and uses alof of different sources, amazon, google, discogs, and many more, can can also preview the images for good resolution.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/album-art/

Thank you for the link. I have seen this before but have not tried it until now because what I feared to be the case is true. I have yet to find any high resolution album covers using this utility.

I am going to continue to scan and post the covers I have because there are people like me that want resolutions greater than 800 X 800.

Plus I like having control over the quality.

I like to use: http://www.albumartexchange.com/