From time to time questions are asked about how to manage the cover art. What's seen throughout most of the program are thumbnails created from the cover art, not the original cover art image itself. Looking at album thumbnails in an audio view, it's not easy to isolate those of poor quality or see any descriptive data concerning the original image.
The Easy SolutionThe technique described here is a little involved, and intended for those having a genuine interest in determining the quality of their cover art and taking steps to improve it. Before getting into that, I would be remiss in not pointing out an easier (but somewhat limited) solution to the problem. That is to to use the tag editing window to display the original cover embedded in the selected file(s). Do so by opening the tag editor and clicking on the small cover thumbnail at the top. The editor window will be filled by the image...
I've set the width of the tree to about 600 pixels—my preferred minimum cover size. Images are resized to fit the window—up to their actual size. As a result, it's quite apparent when an image is significantly less that the size I want. At the same time, anything larger will be sized to fit the window. A tooltip (as illustrated) shows the actual size of the image and it's location.
This works reasonably well for browsing through albums one-at-time and taking action where the quality is unacceptable. There are some significant limitations, however:
- In a large collection with mainly good covers, browsing is not an effective way to find poor ones.
- Even if browsing does work, it's not an effective way to identify covers most in need of improvement (e.g., smallest size, smallest dimensions).
- Even viewing full-size image may not identify more subtle problems (not square, large dimension but small file size).
- If the collection includes a set of album art (i.e., front and back covers, inserts, discs, booklet, etc.) it might be desirable to see those images along with the cover.
The Better SolutionThe better and often mentioned solution is to display the files and their actual cover art images in the same view. But how? And how does this help narrow the focus to those needing attention? Yes, it's one of those "easier said than done" things. What's needed is not just the ability to display both in the same view, but to correctly identify which images are those currently being used as covers, to select those requiring attention, match those to audio files, and then display selected albums together with their art (which might include images other than covers).
In brief, the process is as follows:
- Write embedded covers to disk and import them to the library.
- Create a 'Cover Maintenance' Panes view.
- Identify the images just written as covers, and tag them with [Artist] and [Album].
- Use panes to select covers needing attention.
- Select one album (or a manageable few), explicitly selecting [Artist] and [Album] in panes.
- Deselect the pane selections made in step 4—to include the audio files associated with the cover.
- Fix or replace the covers.
- Re-write the embedded covers to disk and update the view.
- Reset Selection and start again.
In more detail...
Backup your Library! 1. Write embedded covers to disk and import them to the library.For those aware MC saves the covers to disk anyway, this step may seem puzzling. The primary purpose is to distinguish images actually being used as covers from other images that may exist in the cover art locations. When written, the [Date Modified] of these files will provide a basis for identifying them as covers.
- In your primary audio view, select the albums you wish to include.
- Add the search [Track #]=1 to limit the view to one track per album.
- Select All, and then run Save Cover Art to external location specified in Options.
- If you haven't already done so, add your cover art location and image media type to your Auto-Import configuration.
- Run Auto-Import.
2. Create a 'Cover Maintenance' Panes view.Set the
Rules for file display to include both image and audio files. If using location to restrict files, ensure the rules include the location of your cover art folder as specified in Options. Under
Advanced, select
Filter in both directions.
Following is the expression used to create my 'Select-O-Matic' pane. Tailor this to your own needs, or create your own pane for selecting covers only.
If(IsEqual([Media Type], Audio), If(IsEmpty([Image File]), No Cover,
If(IsEqual([Image File], Inside File), , No Cover In File)), );
If(IsEqual([Media Type], Image), Image, Audio);
If(IsEqual([Media Type], Image), If(Compare([Date Modified, 0], >, Math(Now() - 2)), Image New, Image Old), );
If(IsEqual([Media Type], Image), If(IsEqual([Art.Type], cover), Art Cover, Art Other), )&DataType=[List]
Note this is just a list of various conditions producing a selection menu. My version does more things than strictly necessary for the basic task, like selecting files with no embedded covers, images only, audio only, etc. The critical one is the fourth line, which is selecting the images modified in the last two days. These will be the files updated in step 1. You may want to us a shorter time period (e.g., 'Math(Now() - .25))' for images updated in the 6 hours).
For other reasons, I've tagged the same files
[Art Type]=[cover] and cleared that value from any other files not just updated. It's redundant in the context of the job at hand.
Following is the expression used to create my 'Alerts' pane. Change the parameters to suit your own needs, or add more menu items for selecting the covers you wish to focus on.
If(Compare([Height], =, [Width]), , not square);
If(Compare([Width], <, 600), small dimension, );
If(Compare([Width], >, 1000), large dimension, );
If(Compare([File Size, 0], <, 60000), small size, );
If(Compare([File Size, 0], >, 600000), large size, )&DataType=[List]
The 'Location' pane is optional; the [Artist] and [Album] panes are self-explanatory.
3. Identify the images just written as covers, and tag them with [Artist] and [Album].When writing the image files, the program names them
[Album Artist (auto)] - [Album].jpg. When it imports them, it sets [Name] to
[Artist] - [Album]. For a more or less perfect matching of covers to albums, set [Artist] and [Album] using the ListItem() function and [Name]—as illustrated in the screenshot.
4. Use panes to select covers needing attention.Use the Select-O-Matic, Alerts and optional Location panes to select the covers needing attention. In the screenshot, I've selected a handful of rock album covers with a small file size—suggesting poor quality.
5. Select one album (or a manageable few), explicitly selecting [Artist] and [Album] in panes.This is subtle but important: Explicitly select the [Artist] and [Album] of the chosen cover in their respective panes. In the screenshot, note how I've selected Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble's Greatest Hits. Now, before doing anything further...
6. Deselect the pane selections made in step 4—to include the audio files associated with the cover.Do so by clicking on 'All Alerts' and 'All Select-O-Matic' at the top of these respective panes. (If your covers are saved in a separate cover art folder (rather than in the album folder) then you probably don't want to use a 'Location' pane. But if you are, deselect it as well.) As a result, the view will not include all image and audio files tagged with the selected Artist and Album. See the screenshot under step 8.
7. Fix or replace the covers.The screenshot illustrates one of my favourite sources for covers—
AlbumArtExchange. I use a search
Link to the site, copy the image URL, and with all tracks selected, choose
Paste from Clipboard from the context menu to update the embedded covers (see the screenshot under step 8).
There are, of course, many possible alternatives for what might be done at this point. The existing cover may be fine, but just need resizing, cropping or some other edit that can be done directly in MC. Or the same may be done with an alternate cover image already in the album folder. Even if it was the original source of the poor quality cover you already have, it only takes a few seconds to check
Get from Internet again for a better version. Failing all that,
Album Art Downloader is a good "brute-force" tool for searching everywhere for a cover. I've added it to my
Send To menu for hard cases.
8. Re-write the embedded covers to disk and update the view.This step is optional, but it may give you a warm and fuzzy feeling to update the external cover image to see the results of your work—that is, the dimensions and file size of your new, humongous, perfectly square cover: Select the cover and choose
Update Library (from tags). For a good look and quality-check, double-click the image file to view it.
Note whatever context menu commands are used for steps 7 and 8 will remain easily accessible at the top of your context menu throughout the session.
9. Reset Selection and start again.When finished with the current album, click
Reset Selection on the tab menu, and start again at step 3.
If you've read this far, you might be wondering if all this is worthwhile. Give it a try. It might not be evident from reading this that steps 3 to 6 need only take seconds. Everything you need for addressing the cover issue is then available in the view. It's not shown in the screenshots, but throughout the process I leave the tag window open showing the currently embedded cover (exactly as in the 'Easy Solution'). So whatever advantages there are to doing so remain—essentially, visual confirmation of whatever is going on.