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Author Topic: Album Cover Art  (Read 4561 times)

clancyHOME

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Album Cover Art
« on: December 11, 2017, 02:42:46 pm »

I did a search and can't believe this has never been asked...but
What is the best or recommended size for artwork. IE: 300x300, 500x500, 1000x1000, etc

Also, unless I'm doing something wrong, it appears that artwork doesn't automatically resize in attached or unattached "Display View"?
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marko

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Re: Album Cover Art
« Reply #1 on: December 11, 2017, 05:31:26 pm »

I don't think there is a 'recommended' size.

All of mine is 800 x 800.
I did have it all 1000 x 1000, but found that some things, like the head unit in my car, couldn't, or wouldn't, display album art at that size. I've had no issues at 800 x 800.

Others have large displays and find that even larger album art works better for them, and others just don't care as long as it's there.

There is a theory that best quality is best. Quality is not only defined by size. You could have a nice, crisp well defined file at 800 x 800, that could be 1mb or more in size, and a 1000 x 1000 file that's under 1mb and looks terrible.

Also consider that, to my mind, and many others, storing the art 'inside the file' is considered best practice, and is, I'm sure, MC's default. This means that when you add art of 1mb in size to an album that has ten tracks, you will need an extra 10mb of space to store that album.

As far as display view goes, I don't know. Mine is always using Aeon or Milkdrop, and I don't have an MC in front of me at the moment. I'll have a look later when I do though.

clancyHOME

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Re: Album Cover Art
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2017, 06:29:32 pm »

Marko... Thank you for the input I find artwork over 500x500 hard to find. 500x500 and 600x600 are fairly easy to find on my go-to online sites... AllMusic, Discogs, Album Art Exchange, Amazon and Google image search if the file is not embedded in the disc. I also have a folder of covers I have scanned if not found online. I suppose I could download the best looking and biggest image I can find and then resize/scale in Photoshop

I have been using Noire or Noire Viz for Display View (FYI I am using Modern Cards: Dark Edition for the skin if that matters)
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~OHM~

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Re: Album Cover Art
« Reply #3 on: December 12, 2017, 08:09:37 am »

Marko... Thank you for the input I find artwork over 500x500 hard to find. 500x500 and 600x600 are fairly easy to find on my go-to online sites... AllMusic, Discogs, Album Art Exchange, Amazon and Google image search if the file is not embedded in the disc. I also have a folder of covers I have scanned if not found online. I suppose I could download the best looking and biggest image I can find and then resize/scale in Photoshop

I have been using Noire or Noire Viz for Display View (FYI I am using Modern Cards: Dark Edition for the skin if that matters)

then your missing this....

https://sourceforge.net/projects/album-art/?source=directory

and here

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,57392.0.html

or here

https://albumartexchange.com/

 ;)
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MikeO

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Re: Album Cover Art
« Reply #4 on: December 12, 2017, 08:18:43 am »

I chose 500 x 500 as I need to use with usb as an ext drive sometimes on my streamer

Unless you blow up reaaallly big eg theatre view why do higher

Marlo has it though! Quite often the artwork is poor even at higher res, just look for the best you can find regardless of res

Mike
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Awesome Donkey

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Re: Album Cover Art
« Reply #5 on: December 12, 2017, 08:37:46 am »

https://albumartexchange.com/ and https://fanart.tv/ are my two go-to sites for album art. If those two don't have what I'm looking for, then I do searches via https://images.google.com/

I use 1000x1000 (or at least either width/height by 1000px) for my album art.
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marko

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Re: Album Cover Art
« Reply #6 on: December 12, 2017, 09:47:18 am »

MC's own 'get from internet' often has good results too. For the simplicity, I always look there first.

DocLotus

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Re: Album Cover Art
« Reply #7 on: December 12, 2017, 04:26:04 pm »

I scan my own at 5000 x 5000.
Reasons...
1: I clean up & down size later to 1000 x 1000 in Zoner Studio X thereby further improving quality.
2: Only takes a few minutes.
3: I just like doing 'my own thing'.
and finally...
4: Gives me complete control over what I get (that's the best part).

But, that's just me.
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RD James

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Re: Album Cover Art
« Reply #8 on: December 12, 2017, 04:57:29 pm »

I always use the highest resolution available.
More and more devices have 4K screens, so I'd want a minimum of 2160x2160.
8K is on the way. (4320x4320)
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Ferdi

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Re: Album Cover Art
« Reply #9 on: December 15, 2017, 01:05:34 pm »

A related question: to replace an existing cover art, do I just paste a new image in via the menu (url, clipboard, ...)? Will pasting in a new cover art really replace the existing one, or will it be saved as a second image, preserving the previous one?

In MC, I haven't seen the option to store and label multiple images with a file. At the same time, in MediaMonkey, I discovered that files can store more than one images. That's something i don't have any use for, so i have occasionally cleaned the files up with MediaMonkey, to save space.

thanks!
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AlanDistro

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Re: Album Cover Art
« Reply #10 on: December 15, 2017, 03:17:50 pm »

I try to get 1400 x 1400 to future proof. Plus when I full-screen JRiver on my 4k TV I don't want the art to look too soft. But as mentioned above, I'll take a smaller dimension but high quality image file over a larger crappy scan any day.
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marko

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Re: Album Cover Art
« Reply #11 on: December 15, 2017, 06:12:38 pm »

A related question: to replace an existing cover art, do I just paste a new image in via the menu (url, clipboard, ...)? Will pasting in a new cover art really replace the existing one, or will it be saved as a second image, preserving the previous one?

In MC, I haven't seen the option to store and label multiple images with a file. At the same time, in MediaMonkey, I discovered that files can store more than one images. That's something i don't have any use for, so i have occasionally cleaned the files up with MediaMonkey, to save space.

thanks!
MC does not support saving multiple images in the file tags, so yes, existing art is replaced.

I have no idea what happens when MC encounters a file that already contains multiple image files though...
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