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[ruze]

Seems discogs.com almost always comes through with finding cover art, while the built in Cover Art -> Get From Internet... is hit or miss.  Of course, there may be licensing issues but if at all possible to use the other site I think the success rate would be much better.

[dcwebman]

The Get From Internet is from MC users submitting their cover art. The more we can get users to do that, the better cover art we'll have.

[666JackTheKnife666]

What are the standards for uploading Cover Art ? The reason I ask is that
I get my Cover art from freecovers.net and they are all 300 dpi 1500 x 1500 scans. 
If your processing of uploaded Cover Art degrades or re sizes uploaded Cover Art I dont see the point in uploading.
Most of what I have seen downloaded from MC "get from internet" get mighty fuzzy and pixilated when looked at in theater view.

[bunglemebaby]

Seems discogs.com almost always comes through with finding cover art, while the built in Cover Art -> Get From Internet... is hit or miss.  Of course, there may be licensing issues but if at all possible to use the other site I think the success rate would be much better.

Personally, I use a 'search link' set to search Google Images for [artist] and [album] to search for cover art that I don't find using the "get from internet" dialog. It's not as quick, but it yields reasonably consistent results.

Code: [Select]

<Link version="1.1">
<Item Name="Name">CoverArt</Item>
<Item Name="Filter">[Media Type]=[Audio]</Item>
<Item Name="Action">1</Item>
<Item Name="Base URL">http://images.google.com</Item>
<Item Name="Search URL">http:////images.google.com//images?q=Hexify([Album Artist (auto)] [Album])</Item>
</Link>If interested in trying it, right click on one of the links at the top right underneath the search box, click "add..." to add a new link, and paste that stuff in using the "paste link Info from clipboard button".

What are the standards for uploading Cover Art ?

None really. It's essentially a popularity contest. The most commonly used image file is at the top of the list. I would guess that you'll slowly see a trend towards larger images over time, as people move towards larger displays and hard drives.

[dcwebman]

As said, there really isn't a standard on size. However it seems that a lot of people are themselves "standardizing" on 500x500 since that's what the good images from places like Amazon & Walmart are using. At least that's the minimum size I try to go for.

[Frobozz]

It will be interesting to see what size and quality of images end up becoming the popular choices in the database.

I hope people don't upload 1500x1500 and larger images just because larger is better.  In cover art scans, larger is not always better.  1500x1500 and larger images end up with visible dot patterns due to the printing process.  They become moiré monsters.  Large images need to be scanned using a descreening filter and then cleaned up in an editing program.  Then the images need to be shrunk down to 600x600 or 500x500, cleaned up in an editing program some more, and then finally they're ready for cover art.  I hope I don't end up seeing lots of big 1500x1500 images in the database because those images are unfinished and unready and need lots of editing before they're ready for proper cover art.

I've standardized on 500x500 for myself.  If it's an image that I'm going to upload to AlbumArtExchange I'll do it as 600x600, but I'll usually also make a 500x500 version for myself.

Most of the images that are in my library are either scanned and edited by myself, gotten from AlbumArtExchange, gotten from Amazon, or gotten from Buy.com.  Those are the images that I end up uploading to the JRiver database.  Some of my 500x500 or 600x600 images are over 200K.  I try to avoid over-compression and would rather have them big than have JPG artifacts.  I wonder if people are going to decide that 200K+ is too big and my images will get bumped off the JRiver server?  I wouldn't be surprised if that happens.

I've put some of my cover art on Amazon as well.  Amazon recompresses JPG images to heck, but you can also upload PNG images to Amazon.  Amazon doesn't butcher PNG images when recompressing them.  So if I have an image that looks horrible at a low JPG level I'll upload it as a PNG.

[benn600]

My entire library (except probably 3 albums) have 1200x1200 scanned cover art.  In no way do I feel it is too big.  I use the moire-reduction offerings with my scanner and they greatly help.  I actually scan a big area gathering about 1600 pixels squared of image, which I then crop down to 1200x1200, selecting the best.  This allows the resizing algorithm to also mesh remnants of the pattern together.  Considering a 1080 pixel screen (1080p), I would never consider less than 1K pixels squared.  I like huge cover art to match the equipment capability and everyone is way past 800x600.

These are then saved at 100% jpg quality, yielding a half to one and a half megabytes.  Looking back, PNG would be a bit better but also take a ton more space.  These cover art files look gorgeous.  I take care to remove imperfections in the cover art and also apply some auto filters that improve overall dynamic range -- black blacks.  The blacks on cover art can look more grey in the printing/scanning process.  These few steps greatly improve the cover art.

[stubbo]

If you'd rather use discogs for your quick link search, just create it as follows..

base URL=http:////www.discogs.com
search URL=http:////www.discogs.com//advanced_search?artist=Hexify([Album Artist (auto)])&release_title=Hexify([Album])

For Freecovers, use the following..

base URL=http:////www.freecovers.net
search URL=http:////www.freecovers.net//search.php?search=Hexify([Album Artist (auto)] - [Album])

If you prefer last.fm, use this..

base URL=http:////www.last.fm
search URL=http:////www.last.fm//music//Hexify([Album Artist (auto)])//Hexify([Album])

Hopefully you get the gist and you can add any others you like based on these.

[ranjan]

bunglemebaby
I would want to add that but seems I am not able to follow the instructions being a new user.
I click on START tab on left side I do see right hand upper corner Search bar but right clicking on that I don't see "add".
Can you post an image showing it or some what more description?

[bunglemebaby]

I can post a screen shot later tonight. In the mean time the links are actually right below the 'search' box. They just look like plain text. I forget what the default links are, but I think at least one of Google, YouTube or Wiki will be there. Right click on one of those and you should see 'add...'. If you don't see those there, I can post you a screen shot tonight.

[wew]

I apologize for what is probably a "novice" posting.  But I have used MC since 10, and have now gravitated from MC13 on an XP computer to MC14 on a Win7 new computer.  Believe me, it has been an adventure.
One of my questions is this:  When I highlight the songs of an album, right click and select get cover art from the internet, only a display of the cover art from my library is shown.  Further, the display for the album is show "ALBUM - ALBUM" instead of "ARTIST - ALBUM."  All of my tag information is correct and displays correctly.  Interestingly, when I select an album with the same artist and title (i.e. "Steppenwolf - Steppenwolf"), other album covers are pulled from the internet.  Clearly, this process on my system is looking for an artist with the same name as the album.
Why is this feature not recognizing and displaying the artist?
Thanks.

[wew]

Does anyone else have this issue?

[bunglemebaby]

Does anyone else have this issue?

I can't say that I have. One thing to double check would be the [Album Artist] and [Album Artist (auto)] tags. I've seen some funny things happen with [Album Artist (auto)] on occasion and that would cause the "ALBUM - ALBUM" display that you're seeing. Generally these "funny things" will happen if you have not filled any data into [Album Artist] yourself. (I haven't had any issues with this recently, but once you get the issue it will continue until fixed since it's part of the tags/database.)

The reason that you're only seeing the album art from your library is that the auto-search is not finding any results, presumably because it's using ALBUM - ALBUM as the search string.

If it's not a case of [Album Artist (auto)] being filled in with faulty information, I'm at a loss.

-JB

[kurushi]

The Get From Internet is from MC users submitting their cover art. The more we can get users to do that, the better cover art we'll have.

I have cheched submit covert art in option but when i schearch from mc servers ;i don't see my covert in the possibly choices.
I have good coverts arts and i 'll be happy to share them with mc14 users...