To Clarify: iTunes 7 ALBUM ARTWORK Issues...

[mcanlas]

You state:

When adding album artwork DIRECTLY to tracks (on iPod or in iTunes):

Is it possible to add album art to songs on your ipod, then when you sync back to your iTunes library the library recognizes the art you put into the track on your iPod?

[Jesse Hollington]

The short answer is no.

If you are using automatic synchronization, then you cannot add artwork directly to tracks on the iPod itself (nor can you modify any other track information directly on the iPod). In automatic sync mode, changes are made in iTunes and sync out to the iPod -- only information like ratings, paly counts, and last played times are synced back.

In manual mode, nothing is synced between the iPod and iTunes at all -- the iPod is treated like a separate library. Even if you switch to manual back to automatic, however, track information is not synced back -- only data like play counts, ratings, and last played times.

[Germansuplex]

Originally Posted by packpackpack

Here is my process for adding album art using iTunes 8. Keep in mind that i want my album art embedded in each track, not in a separate iTunes only database file.

I select entire album in iTunes, then right click and click 'Get Album art'. Then in the album art window I right click and COPY. I then go back to the selected album right click and 'Clear downloaded album art' The I right click selected album and go to 'get info' the right click and paste album art into that box using that dialog.

I guess I want to know if I am doing an extra step in Clearing the downloaded album art before I go to the get info to paste so it is embedded in the file. Still wish iTunes would embed its album art that is downloaded but that doesn't appear to be something Apple is willing to consider for some reason.

Hitting "clear downloaded artwork" before pasting it into the track IS an extra step if your only concern is embedding the artwork.

When you use iTunes "Get Album Art" feature, it downloads it into it's own database, but does not embed it (as you already know). I think that if you hit "clear downloaded artwork", iTunes will remove this art from the database. By doing that step, you may be saving a few kb or mb of space, but it has no effect on the copy/paste process. You can always refresh your iTunes art cache by deleting the album art folder from your iTunes music folder. iTunes will rebuild it automatically.

[SQWIB]

Originally Posted by mc_razza

Yeah, I've noticed that too on some occasions. It really is quite ridiculous. I was requesting album art for a particular album earlier one day and by sometime in the afternoon I clicked on "Get Album Artwork" again without changing any of the fields within the individual songs and I got the album art. Strange.


Yeah, one person recommended a site called www.albumartexchange.com which has a good selection of mid-high quality album art.

Anyone else with any more suggestions?

I have been using Album Art Exchange for quite a while, I highly recommend this site.
I have been re tagging everything, at about 13,000 songs its a lot of work, but I look at it as a hobby and not a chore. I'm in no rush to have it all done at once.
But I do want it done right.

[croutonboy]

Does anyone know of any scripts or programs that can be run on Windows to take the iTunes downloaded artwork and embed it into the files?

Also, as an aside, I recently ran into a problem with some files where they weren't playing due to errors in the file. I ran a program to correct the errors but I lost the embedded art from the files. This isn't a problem for files where the art is downloaded from iTunes because of the separate database. Just a warning if you're running into that same problem...

[ape]

Yes I would also be very interested in something to automatically embed the itunes downloaded artwork. I am currently in the process of copy pasting manually, but it is going to take forever!
Anyone know of anything?

[bsantiago4]

I am having the same problem and im hoping you can help me. I have 3g IPHONE and use Itunes 8.0.0.35. I am having the same problem. In Itunes it shows all the album artwork but once I sync, a lot of them are gone. I have tried to find the "display album artwork" option but I cant find it anywhere. I have searched all through Itunes and can't seem to find it. Please please please help! this is so annoying!!!!

[urbanlegend]

to get to the option select your ipod under devices, go to the music tab, then you should see the option at the bottom - a check box for "display album artwork on your ipod". this is where it is for my nano.

john

[rockmyplimsoul]

Originally Posted by bsantiago4

I have tried to find the "display album artwork" option but I cant find it anywhere. I have searched all through Itunes and can't seem to find it.

The iPhone and iPod Touch do not have this option when connected to iTunes, only the Nano and Classic do.

[rsramirez]

hi,

a lot of my mixes or live recordings won't have art available from the itunes store and i would have to provide myself, which is no problem.. but...

ironically i want to do the opposite of what is mostly discussed here. instead of embedding album art into each audio file, i would actually rather mimic the functionality that itunes uses when downloading the art - placing the art and cross referencing that art to the album

yes, while many may say that this is less transportable, that's not an issue to me. i dont like modifying the audio files by adding redundant art in each file and subsequently unnecessarily increasing the file size of every audio file.

while itunes coverflow may be smart enough to use the art embedding in the first file for the entire album, the iphone is not and only shows the art for the first file, and has no cover art displayed for subsequent tracks in an album

ideas?

[Piranhahaha]

Hi, I've read the bulk of this thread and concentrated on everything since iTunes 8 was released but have some clarifications needed.

I just got a 120GB Classic, so is the first time I've ever needed artwork -- with my 5th gen 60GB, I always selected don't show artwork in order to save space and simply never used coverflow when in iTunes itself via my PC. Now it's time for me to add artwork across the span of my 10K track database of 65GB and I want to make sure that I get it right on the first sweep rather than screwing something up.

My iTunes version is 8.1.1.10, although some artwork may have been added earlier on to play with it.

3 general question areas:

First question: clarification of an ID3 tag -- reading this has been my first acquaintance to an ID3 tag. I now understand this is a component of only mpeg3 files, but all but a fraction of imports have come in as iTunes AAC files, either via physically importing a CD into iTunes or the iTunes store. Am I correct? Is there any reason to concern myself with this? Is there an AAC analog to ID3 tags that I need to worry about?

Still, recently I've seen a little box come up when cutting & pasting artwork onto a single track that says "writing ID3 tag." Does that mean I was updating artwork for a track that I must've aquired via eMusic or something in a native mp3 format?

In short, am I right that ID3 tags don't play a part in AAC files?

Second question: does it matter how large the picture I drag & drop into the iTunes albums are? I’ve seen occasions where the filesize increases massivley, but othertimes no change.

Third question: if you experts out there were starting an album artwork appendage for an iPod from very first initial scratch, what would you do?

[macgonigal]

hi there...

i moved my itunes music to an external hard drive and all the artwork has gone from itunes.. I tried to retrieve it using the automatic option, or even per track/album, but nothing happens. It seems to think the artwork is already there but nothing is showing!

Its a real pain to have an iphone with no artwork.
I have also tried re-installing iTunes but with no success.

Can anybody advise?

Thanks.

[jasn]

Did you move the library manually or by changing the library location in Preferences and using the "Consolidate Library" command? The latter method "should" have kept the artwork intact.

You can also try the "Get Album Artwork" command under the Advanced tab.

[Piranhahaha]

It may have been how you moved your iTunes to the harddrive. I know there's a file buried in there named iTunes Artwork. Maybe you didn't move it?


Hey iLounge admins: maybe it's time for a fresh iTunes artwork sticky?

I love your work in here, and think you guys are the best on this entire series of tubes called the internets, but this thread iis too top-heavy with iTunes 7 issues and caches and ID3 tags and so forth.

How about a clean thread for those of us that've come to iTunes artwork in the past year?

[moose]

I often mess-up my library (10,000 songs), and need to delete it then add it back. After adding the songs, iTunes starts processing the album artwork. If I stop it (by hitting the "X"), can I restart the "processing album artwork" process later?