Optimum size for album art?

by **Sebastian78** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 2:07 am

I don't name the cover file's "folder.jpg", I use this:

"Artist - Album - Where I Got It.jpg"

"Jay-Z - The Black Album - Amazon.com"

The reason is that I have a backup of all the album art in an album art folder, ie I can't call them all the same filename. The reason for the last prefix, is an easy way of finding out the quality of the image. Apple one's are the best.

Hmmmmm, Zune Marketplace. Someone should make a "batch download tool" and just download everything they have.

by **Lowlander** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 10:36 pm

Apparently the Zune marketplace now has big size album art too. I don't if it's easier to access than the iTunes album art.

by **gege** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:15 pm

Sebastian78 wrote:My favourite subject.......

I have edited album covers for a 140GB library and embedded all of them into each mp3 file. I haven't placed a copy somewhere and linked to it. Quality, colour saturation....I have done it all.

All of these are 500x500 and it's adequate for almost everything. I keep the filesize around 100kb for each cover.

Apple/iTunes uses 600x600 and this is better and they are all (almost) non-scanned images. But take more space........ (and you can't get them/download them like you could before with that Danish guy's webtool)...

That's almost the same I do.
I always try to find a high-res image, then I edit it Paint.NET (great program, BTW). I adjust brightness, contrast, cropping, etc and then I resize it to 500x500 and save it as Folder.jpg, also trying to keep filesize around 100kb. But I do keep a backup of original high-res image, just in case I decide to use a higher resolution in the future.

Oh yeah, the Danish guy's webtool... that was great! I downloaded a lot of 600x600 beautiful covers with it...
Too bad Apple blocked it...

Linking x embedding: I currently have everything linked (I use trixmoto's Album Art Tagger for that), but sometimes I also ask myself if embedding would better or not...

by **Sebastian78** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 7:35 am

My favourite subject.......

I have edited album covers for a 140GB library and embedded all of them into each mp3 file. I haven't placed a copy somewhere and linked to it. Quality, colour saturation....I have done it all.

All of these are 500x500 and it's adequate for almost everything. I keep the filesize around 100kb for each cover.

Apple/iTunes uses 600x600 and this is better and they are all (almost) non-scanned images. But take more space........ (and you can't get them/download them like you could before with that Danish guy's webtool)...

by **colin_e** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 10:00 am

kingoomieiii wrote:
Lowlander wrote:Size is an issue when you have lack of harddrive space or use it with a portable player. If MediaMonkey could auto-resize embedded art when synchronizing to a portable player that issue would be solved too.
I've been thinking about that! there's an option to automatically remove the art if it's over 200kb or whatever, but I'd LOVE if it could remove all but the FIRST picture, and downsize that to 200x200 syncing

That would knock like 30MB off my sync

Sounds like a very nifty capability. Put it in the MM RFE (Request For Enhancement) list.

Regards: Colin

by **kingoomieiii** » Sat Oct 20, 2007 11:50 pm

Lowlander wrote:I try to get as big as possible as screen resolutions keep increasing. This means that in the future when using my album art full screen I would still have a decent quality picture.

Size is an issue when you have lack of harddrive space or use it with a portable player. If MediaMonkey could auto-resize embedded art when synchronizing to a portable player that issue would be solved too.

I've been thinking about that! there's an option to automatically remove the art if it's over 200kb or whatever, but I'd LOVE if it could remove all but the FIRST picture, and downsize that to 200x200 syncing

That would knock like 30MB off my sync

by **Lowlander** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:58 pm

I try to get as big as possible as screen resolutions keep increasing. This means that in the future when using my album art full screen I would still have a decent quality picture.

Size is an issue when you have lack of harddrive space or use it with a portable player. If MediaMonkey could auto-resize embedded art when synchronizing to a portable player that issue would be solved too.

by **Teknojnky** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:38 pm

I try to keep my embedded art between 250 and 800 pixels. (I use Trixmoto's google batch art finder to help find/keep the sizes I want).

by **colin_e** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:57 pm

Thanks for the steer guys. Looks like I was being overly cautious regarding the size of embedded cover art.

by **gregmasciola** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:30 pm

Personally, I make my album art 400x400.

by **fizzjob** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:37 pm

IMHO, the only reason to use low-res artwork is if you're seriously crunched for space. With storage being relatively dirt cheap these days, that's less of an argument than it used to be, and will continue to become less of an argument.

Quality-wise, just about everything that displays JPGs will downscale them to fit with good results. Upscaling...that's not going to look so good. FWIW, I try to go for artwork around 600x600 pixels.

by **colin_e** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 11:58 am

I've started tagging my music collection with album art. In MP3 i'm generally putting the art in the tags, which I assume means I should use a smallish image(?)

Meanwhile Ogg Vorbis doesn't support art in the tags, so it seems the only option is a file in the album folder (doesn't sound as if this will work well for a folder full of singles by various artists BTW).

1) Any hints/tips on optimum cover art sizes? E.g. if art is too big will some players refuse to display it?

2) Does it make sense to put a low-res image in the MP3 tag, and a high-res version in the folder as a jpeg?

Optimum size for album art?

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Optimum size for album art?